The countdown

Less than 10 days to go before Christmas. And Missy is scanning the sky for Santa.

Actually, she's looking for snow. Until this week, we had only trace amounts throughout the West. Today it is snowing on the valley floor in Portland, which is a rare thing indeed.

Next week we leave for 12 (gulp!) days in our ski camper with a 7-month old in tow. I am both happy beyond belief and a bit nervous.

Every year we do a holiday post card. This is ours from this year.

Flashbacks

Now that we are in the thick of the holiday swing, I find myself having vivid flashbacks to this time last year – Missy’s first trimester – and the fall prior – my first miscarriage.

I rarely wrote about how sick and terrified I was in this blog because I feel like I went through my first trimester with Missy in full-blown bunker mentality.

You would think that my beautiful daughter, harried life and, well, time itself might have dulled the angst-ridden memories. Still, I find myself visiting a random place like Costco and remembering vividly how it felt to walk down the aisle on the verge of puking. Or standing at the check out line at New Seasons Market on a rainy Friday night in November with a pint of ice cream and a box of pads as I lost Junior #1. I went for a doctor’s appointment in the same building where I had my CVS almost a year ago to date and could almost feel my knees knocking in fear again.

The fall of 2006 was filled with so much sadness and searching after my first miscarriage. The fall of 2007, so much anxiety and sickness. While I selfishly long to add another child to our family, I am not ready for the potential re-visit to such dark spaces.

In the initial months after Missy’s birth, I was too busy – or just plain too tired – to remember the pain of IF and miscarriages. This living, breathing, fiery little bundle consumed every spare second. I thought the pain might have gone – poof! like magic – the moment she emerged.

Now I have a bit more precious time & energy to think as well as the context of the holiday ritual to remind me how I felt last year and the year before. I am simultaneously sad and so very grateful. I can’t even fathom how much inner resolve it took to get through it so stoically. Was I ever that strong? I didn’t feel so at the time but in retrospect I am in awe that I made it through.

Shortly after we got the thumbs-up from the CVS results – and knew Missy was a missy – we received our first baby present from Mr. & Mrs. Super Planner: a subtle pink-striped swaddle blanket from PBK.

I found the gift receipt for the swaddle blanket the other day. Ever the glass-is-half-empty, I had saved it throughout the pregnancy just in case we had to return the item (for obvious, unspeakable reasons).

So I took that receipt…and shredded the shit out of it.

So Long

It has been so long since I've posted.

I know, I know. I suck.

I feel like there is so much to say, to write about. But the reality is that I barely have time to get online. I am so immersed in, well, life. Just life. The everyday nuances and rhythms. The good. The bad. The spit up. The everything.

No offense, internet, but if I have a spare 30 minutes, I am more drawn to making a batch of baby food or cleaning my shower. Suzy fucking domestic that I am these days. (That's another post entirely.)

I've also been struggling with what this blog is now that Missy is here. Sure, I could post all of her achievements: sitting up (check), rolling (check), drinking water from a sippy cup (check), sleeping through the night (pipe dream).

I could post our daily life stuff: waterbabies on Tuesdays; library on Fridays; her first season pass.

Our favorite things: bumGenius 3.0 cloth diapers, the Ergo baby carrier, the California Baby line of natural babycare products, the REI down infant suit, our bunny blabla.

Or the things I've learned: how to get dinner ready & feed a baby simultaneously; how to deal with a reflux kid; how not to put a baby with a dirty diaper in the jumperoo.

The truth is that I have an adorable baby who I took Thanksgiving food shopping and Christmas tree hunting. I am happy. But I can still feel the pain of infertility and the first trimester sickness and fear of a repeat miscarrier like it was yesterday.

It is a dark place in the span of my life. So dark that it threatens to block out the sunshine-y days. So sometimes I just need to put it back there, in the back of my mind. Which is why I'd rather clean the shower than blog.

But then I feel like an ass who has left so many relationships behind. Relationships that developed right here. That I don't want to leave behind. Because I enjoy those relationships. And because I made a promise that I intend to keep: to see everyone through.

I never want to be that blog that just ends. A random post and then no more. A promise to keep writing and then nothing.

But I am struggling about what to write.

For those of you still reading, what are you interested in regarding this journey from miscarriages to infertility to a successful pregnancy and now motherhood? Anything is fair game.

Here are some pictures of Missy at 5 & 6 months old. She is more fun with every passing day.

We love our bunny blabla. He matches our eyes.

First meal. Rice cereal is the bomb!