9w2d for the last time

Damn you, Whirlpool commercial.



So I have to remind myself that crying over dumb commercials and being so sick that I can't lift my head off the desk is OKAY because it's temporary. In fact, it's too temporary.

I will never be nine weeks and two days pregnant again.

I will never be this sick from growing a baby again.

I will never outgrow my clothes for legitimate reasons again.

After January, I will never anticipate holding my newborn for the first time again.

I already feel the void of the end of all this beauty. So I must remember to endure, and close my eyes, and listen to life as it slowly grows. Because it will all be over too fast.

helpless

I had plans for this blog. I was going to post on Christmas about how different the holiday is with a baby. I was going to post on the last day of 2010 about what the year has meant to me, how it has changed everything, how I'm a new person and I will always feel love and warmth for the rest of my life when I think of that year. The Year of Fletcher.

I was going to post a little parade of my favorite 2010 photos. I also was going to post the ton of holiday photos (and a video or two) that we took in the last couple weeks.

But we are sick.

Oh are we sick.

Caring for a sick baby when I'm so sick myself is a new challenge. As one year ended and another began, we had coughing and mucus and screaming and earaches and headaches and congestion and tears. I bounced him and walked with him and cried with him.

Andy came home and took over. I went upstairs and lay back down in bed, listening to Fletcher wail downstairs, and I sobbed. A little for my pain. A little for his.

I have barely slept. My throat is on fire. My face feels like it has been beaten, and my ears hurt more than they ever have. None of it compares with the helplessness, the desperation in his cries and I can't fix it.

Happy New Year, world. I hope things can only get better.

change

You hear all the time that all things change and you can't avoid change. Nowhere has that been more obvious to me than with my baby.

There's nothing I could love more than him, which is why it is so jarring to wake up one day and his personality is barely recognizable. The sound of his voice is different. The way he laughs is different. His cry is different. The way he nurses, his appetite, his reactions are all different.

When I tried to communicate how lost I feel, Andy said, "Do you think I came home from the gas station with the wrong baby?"

It could be a growth spurt. It could be his (two!) teeth. It could be the natural way these things go. The same thought kept occurring to me today -- this could be the way things are now. The crying and apparent anger and unhappiness might be more than just holiday confusion and teething. This could be the baby's personality for the foreseeable future.

After spending half an hour crying for no obvious reason, something he never used to do, he's now sleeping, and I'm breathing deeply and finding anchors -- comforting things that haven't changed, that I can count on to stay the same.

My love for my baby hasn't changed. If anything, I love him more in his time of need.

My love for my husband hasn't changed. If anything, it's stronger in my time of need.

My home is still here. My job is unchanged. I am still me.

For better or for worse. In the laughter and the tears. I can't promise I won't break down and cry whenever he does, but that's okay. We're a family and we have each other.