Good signs

Well, after one day of feet up on the couch, curbed salt intake, and about a gallon of water, my first-thing-in-the-morning weight is down FIVE pounds already. So that is very promising. Dang, I must have been retaining an absolute LOAD of fluid. (I also only had to pee twice in the night in spite of drinking all that water, so I must have been majorly dehydrated... I'll never really understand the biology of why drinking more makes you retain less, but I totally believe it.) Anyway... I am learning my lesson in drastic fashion. Wow. Hopefully the positive signs will continue and my appointment Monday will be fine... the key will be if the amniotic fluid is replenished. Speaking of -- time to go refill my water and stretch the old (MUCH less swollen, thank you) legs!! (Then more chick flicks!)

Sidelined

I guess I got too sure of myself, and now I'm in the doghouse...

A week of bedrest, to be exact -- doctor's orders. Seems my amniotic fluid is a little LOW and my blood pressure is a little HIGH (and lord knows the ankles are just ENORMOUS).

Didn't feel like particularly hard living, but I suppose in retrospect the a) working long and stressful hours -- till midnight last night, e.g., b) eating badly while working said hours, and c) almost certainly neglecting proper hydration, probably weren't the greatest decisions, especially taken all together. (The bathroom cleaning marathon two nights ago may also have been a misstep.) But... but... I just feel so GOOD! Unstoppable! After all that crummy sickness in the first two trimesters, how could I not test the limits? I'm so bad. Bad mommy, and baby's not even born.

Anyway, I am one who responds to wakeup calls. I am trying not to be too worried about this (especially since G. is still in London till tomorrow night) and try-try-trying to look at it as a welcome opportunity to enjoy chick flicks from my couch while the other suckers I know are all at work. Or something like that. (Only it isn't fun to be home "sick" when you don't feel sick!)

I hope you don't think I'm being nonchalant. Believe it or not I cried in the doctor's office parking lot -- I seriously thought I was going in for a 10 minute "everything's perfect" checkup. I just have to work on not fixating on the bad things this could forbode because there's nothing I can do about it but change my ways. Right?

Meanwhile, the immediate victim here is my poor yard -- scheduled for planting this weekend, but now apparently doomed to surging weeds and no annuals (unless G. has the time and the motivation). But for now I must focus on growing this much more vital weed!

Why?

Why have I been sitting in front my computer for 45 minutes at 10:30 at night surfing mindlessly, when I spent 9 hours in front of my computer at work today? Where is the sense in that?

Bye again

Just found out G. -- who has been in Chicago since Wednesday -- has to/gets to (depending on your perspective) go to London from Monday-Thursday (leaving at 6 am!). Although we'll have the weekend together (oh please oh please don't let me get called into work), I'm still a bit sad. And I guess a bit nervous, although I have NO reason to think I'll go into labor or anything.

Mostly, though -- just sad. He'll miss our sonogram (probably our last one) and those are much more fun to go to together. I can't really reschedule it because they're doing it for measurements. At least we can get a videotape and he can see that. It just gets lonely when he's not around -- too quiet, too much me with my own thoughts and bad t.v.

And... I guess I'm probably a little bit jealous that he's going to London without me! True that.

Where have all the bloggers gone?

Seems lots of my regular reads are taking breaks... or have given up blogging... (or just have fulfilling and/or busy real lives)... Since many of them just haven't posted in awhile, I don't really know which.

(To those of you who have announced your break-taking, your regular readers do appreciate it!)

I just know I miss you guys -- if you're even still reading, you know who you are -- so please come back! At least for a visit.

Rainy, icky weekend predicted -- I was so hoping for a good solid weekend of yard work before I get any less mobile. However, if Nature insists, I suppose I will indulge her and (try to) sleep in....

More dreams.

Three nights ago, I dreamed my friends ShH and SeH (<--object of high school obsession and new father of my future son-in-law, har har) renovated their house to look like a giant animatronic fiberglass PINK Converse high-top shoe. Huh. The only obvious interpretation here has something to do with "the old woman who lived in the shoe, who had so many children, yada yada." But they only have one, and he's only 2 months old. So. Huh.

Two nights ago, I had a dream that SS's condition was so bad he had no muscle control and started convulsing and I thought he was going to die in front of me. I wanted to stop it, but I couldn't. No interpretation needed here... I am extra worried about him because he never got back to me about the taxes (I know, it's SO awkward and we NEVER should have let him agree to do them in the first place), even to tell me he wouldn't finish them (leaving us to scramble to file for an extension based on purely hypothetical information on 4/15). He's concientious, and he's an accountant for goodness sake, so ignoring his clients entirely on tax day is VERY foreboding.

Last night, I dreamt my sister was pregnant too, and only two weeks behind me, and mad that no one was doing anything nice for her (in spite of the fact that she hadn't told anyone she was pregnant). And instead of being happy that we had this in common now, I flipped out and cried to G. that she was stealing my thunder. Oh -- and she was having a boy. Another mystifying one. Who knew I was such a pregnancy egomaniac?

My good friend CC, meanwhile, called yesterday to say she had a dream that we were talking about the baby, and she asked me "Does the baby kick when she hears people talking?" I said, "Not in particular, except for SS. She always reacts when she hears his voice." Just a small moment, in someone else's subconcious. But it moved me so. So bittersweet. Maybe she does hear him, and know him... I hope so.

And may I add...

Google is way smarter than me. When I tried to spell "Hors D'Oeuvres," I stumped the Blogger spell check, and m-w.com.

Put my best guess into Google, however, and got it! That Google is either way, way, way smarter than me, or it knows me scary well.

Revelation

I think I never truly appreciated it when people said they have swollen ankles. Hahaha, what the hell is a swollen ankle, anyway, I admit I have laughed in my former life?

Last night I went to a 3 hour reception -- standing the whole time -- and at one point looked down over the precipice and saw... ankle skin ballooning over the tops of my slip-on shoes. Took off said shoe and saw indentations -- deep indentations -- where the top of the shoe ended, and the puffy ankle fat began. Wow. Intense.

On another note, you should have seen me mow down the caterers with the passed hors d'oeuvres. Nothing was going to stand between me and my corn-crab fritters!

Nice!

My contractually obligated pay raise (mandated after 18 months on this contract) kicked in last week, and I had totally forgotten! It's only a couple hundred more a month -- probably not even enough to really notice after taxes, 401K, etc... but you know what? I will TAKE IT. And, as I am all about noticing/appreciating the good things that come along right now, I will RELISH IT. (After all, that paycheck is not going to be coming at all for a while, pretty gosh darn soon...!)

Spring in DC

It's beauty like this in the world that allows us to cope with the hard times, I think... I try to soak it in...

Update

I have a lot to write about but haven't been able to find the time or the words for awhile. The shower and the CA trip were wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. I am well aware that I am so lucky to be surrounded by such excellent friends and family. It was such a special occasion.

And on another note, I sure hope this really is a girl (the tech at 16 weeks swore she's never been wrong, but those seem like famous last words to me!), because now I have 6 months worth of darling pink and floral baby clothes....! :)

It's also finally spring and the cherry blossoms are just amazingly beautiful this year. It's a true anomaly when the weekend, the bloom peak, AND good weather coincide. We rode bikes (a bit of a trick when your knees graze your belly) to a neighborhood where it's like traversing under a snowy canopy. Spectacular.

The overshadowing news, though -- the news that has made it hard to post, and is hard to process/regurgitate in any meaningful enough way -- is that SS is really dying. No more options. Not a lot more hope. The leukemia is back in 90% of his blood cells, he's not responding to the experimental drug, any more chemo would kill him immediately, and the transplant is off the table. I am sorry to say he is mostly angry, and also tired. Beaten down is the only way I can describe it. He thinks the hospital screwed up and he feels it's so unfair after his long fight. I hope before the time actually comes, he will find some peace.

Meanwhile, he insists on finishing my taxes (he's my accountant, too), something I have a lot of guilt about but he swears distracts him and gives him something to get him through the days. I have tried to put my foot down but he won't give them back to me, and it's April 11. I wish he wouldn't.

On Saturday I stopped by with some cherry blossom clippings from our tree, and took him the sonogram video we got last week (We finally saw her face! Mesmerizing!). I finally just went because I realized that continuing to ask P. "when would be a good time to visit" would mean we'd never visit -- it's just NEVER a good time.

We talked for awhile. And then, in short -- he said goodbye. Told me he wished he could meet my baby, and told me he loved me. I don't think I said all the right things back. I thought of everything later. I wanted to say, "Your family is my family, and I will do everything I can to be there for them they way you have been there for me." I wanted to say, "When the kids are off to college in the fall, I will make sure P. is not lonely, and my baby will love her like a grandmother." And, "My baby will know all about you, because you are a force in my life." And, "You are the reason I've been able to be happy here, when I had no one else in the world."

I did say, "I love you, too, so much." I don't know, I hope that's enough.