8DPO train ride

August 8, 2011

I'm obsessing again, but I hate not knowing. Am I going to be the mother of two? Am I going to change my son into an older brother? What will the answer be when the wait is over?

A few days. A set number of hours. Stretches of time. Minutes, all in a row. Barely, barely ticking forward.

I'm on a slow moving train and each bump of the track is the next second, and the next, and I'm watching out the window, analyzing every tree, every patch of grass, in case it's a sign of where this train is going.

It breaks my heart to exit the train and be right back where I started before the 28-day trip.

I think we did it, this time. I think we're going to be pregnant. I think April 2012 is going to be the month our family grows once again. Magic.

Is it a good sign that I feel so confident? Or is it horrible what I'm doing to myself, holding onto this hope? I vacillate between.

From Backwards by Christina Perri

Take me backwards, turn me around.
Cannot find my balance on the ground,
This world's too heavy
For a feather falling quickly.

And I wrote you a story,
But I'm afraid of how it ends,
And all my friends are doing well,
And I'm still on the mend.

I'm gonna lay back down,
Hope the wind takes me around.
I gotta find some courage in this town,

'Cause nobody's going to save
Somebody who won't change,
I try to be brave.

And nothing's coming easy, and all at once,
I feel a little queasy.
Oh, but if your love's my remedy,
Won't you please come and be with me?

CD12 time

July 26, 2011

It's cycle day 12 and I can't help wishing on my lucky stars that something will happen this month.

Am I really this eager for Baby Deuce, really for real? Or is it just how much I loved being pregnant that makes me want it again? The excitement. The ultrasounds. The little kicks that mean a tiny person is inside me. The magic when the baby is born.

...What will happen then? Is it any more possible to be ready for the lifestyle change of *two* children, than it was to be ready for the first? It's a scary future. Scary but wonderful, I'm sure. But we are so SPOILED with our little guy. In part, I don't want anything to change.

There's the problem. I'm so happy.

I'm not sure it's possible to be happier. I'm not sure there's enough of me to spread around a husband and two children without being spread so thin that I lose my happiness. I know I CAN do it, I just don't know if I'm going to lose something. I imagine some of what will be gained -- another person to love, the pleasure of seeing my children interact with each other, doubling this joy I already feel whenever I see my son learn something.

There's time. At this point in the trying-to-conceive process, there's lots of time to ponder and crave and worry and obsess. It's a blessing and a curse.

affected

There is a guy I once knew thought I knew. There are victims. There is a lengthy prison sentence. Because there are victims, and I'm not one of them, it isn't my story to tell.

It changes things, though, when that horrible story about that horrible person is no longer separate and distant and anonymous. This is a person who was in my wedding, for pete's sake. Now it's there, lodged in my brain. How could he do it?

I don't mean to be vague and teasing. It's a story I feel the need to discuss, but cannot take ownership of, so it's a hard line to walk.

Why has it affected me, when he wasn't a close friend of mine? Just an acquaintance, really. The story has several dark and horrible facets, but one detail sticks with me. One detail is the reason I can't let go of this with a "oh, that's so terrible."

He has a baby boy.

It's none of my business. But.

In my head, I speculate. That cherubic boy is better off without his father, now that we know the ugliness inside him, right? I'm sure his mother and other family members provide all the love he could need. He may procure a wonderful stepfather. One way or another, I'm sure he has been hurt and will be hurt by the situation, but my thoughts are all hopeful for him.

But. How could he do it?

How could he be so selfish, and yet give up the one thing that I'm most selfish about?

How could a parent ever betray the child that came from him, the child he saw born into this world by the woman he vowed to love? The child who needed him? The child he should, himself, have needed? Even if he no longer wanted to be with his wife (no one knows), how could he make decisions that would surely take him away from his child?

I'm physically ill at the thought of ever hurting, losing, betraying my family. I need them. Do I need my husband and baby too much? I think I named my blog "obsession" because I wonder if I'm too dependent and needy. Whether the betrayer or the betrayed, I would not survive this horror story if it came home to me.