GIRLS. I am in so far over my head here. But I’m also so excited. GIRLS.

I have said before that I always thought I’d have boys, and I suppose that’s true only in the sense that it’s all I really saw modeled. My sister had two boys. My brother had two boys. Adam’s brother had two boys. Of course it would stand to reason that *I* would have two boys, because EVERYONE does.

The truth, though, is that deep down, I knew this was how it would be. If you’d asked me years ago, I would tell you that of course, I’m having daughters. I was a horror show of a teenage girl. I am not that girly (at all). There is nothing about me that indicates that I should be a good mother to little girls, but man, here I am. There I’ll be. In crazytown. But oh, I am so happy.

The upside is that I have zero plans to scrimp on my daughters’ clothing budgets. Well, Sam’s, anyway, because after all, it needs to LAST. RIGHT?

At any rate, I’ll tell you, I’m really done with being pregnant, and I feel like such a douche saying that because I wanted it — want it — so badly, but it turns out, even when you want something, it can still suck AND be terrifying and MANY OTHER NEGATIVE THINGS. I am thrilled every day, of course, but I am less than thrilled that I haven’t felt normally in MONTHS. I don’t remember what it’s like not to nurse low-grade nausea on a constant basis. Or to sneeze without peeing. I’m legitimately not sure if I peed every time I sneezed before I got pregnant. Was it always like this? I can’t even remember. I know my bladder lost some functionality post-birth, but was sneeze-peeing on the list of things that went south? Or am I doomed to a life of panty-liners? I DO NOT EVEN KNOW, YOU GUYS.

(I JUST SAID PANTY. HOLD ME.)

I was AlSO thinking, a la the sinus infection diet theory, that losing weight will be a CINCH after I have this baby, because my God, food isn’t even that appealing, RIGHT? What was I thinking? Why do people overeat? You can’t even eat that much in one sitting, and it doesn’t even TASTE good when you do! I have these absurd, ill-conceived fantasies of wearing teeny tiny jeans and T-shirts in extra small and nibbling daintily on healthy salads and roasted veggies within WEEKS of childbirth. And my hair will be magically grown-out and I will resemble Heidi Klum on her best day! Because, as it turns out, FOOD IS YUCKY, HOW DID I NOT NOTICE THIS BEFORE?

Riiiiight. Obviously I have blocked out the creepily delicious meal of hospital-prepared chicken marsala I devoured the night Sam was born. Y’all, I don’t even LIKE chicken marsala. And then, when I finished that, there was pizza Adam got me from the cafeteria. And the PANCAKES the next day. I felt like Jane Fonda in that pot scene in 9 to 5 as she sucks the pimiento out of a jar of green olives. “This is so wonderful. Everything tastes so WONDERFUL.”

You know why dieting is hard when I’m not pregnant? FOOD TASTES GOOD. Eating food is not a JOB, it is something to ENJOY. So perhaps I should lay off the smuggy pants attitude of “HOW HARD CAN DIETING BE?” as I watch people struggle with New Year’s resolutions to drop a few pounds. Because most people don’t have to stare down a bowl of Kashi GoLean, wondering whether eating it will make them feel better or worse? BETTER OR WORSE? No, they ENJOY that bowl of Kashi (or you know, whatever) and then think about having SECONDS. LIKE NORMAL PEOPLE.

The saddest part of this whole thing is that weight loss is not the desired option, and even when I don’t want to eat, I HAVE to force myself to eat that damned bowl of Kashi GoLean. It’s like some sort of twisted version of hell! You can eat all you want, but it will taste terrible! OR! You have to eat a restricted diet and EVERYTHING WILL BE FABULOUS. You hear that, Satan? This is how you torture people. I assume you’ve got this in your arsenal already.

Wow, I am sorry for whining. What I am going to do now is snuggle my ass up to a body pillow and call this whole thing a DAY. But not before eating that bowl of cereal, natch.

Happy Tuesday!

*10,000 Maniacs

At least that explains why she didn’t want to do it. Not that it’s an excuse, but I suppose I’d be reluctant to do something I knew I sucked at. But more likely, I would TRY TO GET BETTER, HELLO.

Anyway, I had to have the ENTIRE ultrasound redone, but the good news is that there is a healthy girl in there, still, and she’s tall, like Sam (long legs, long femur) and I had a delightful conversation with my super-talented, super-friendly ultrasound tech who is — wait for it — twenty-five years old. At twenty-five, this woman had more skill and grace than the forty-plus ying yang who left me crying on the table.

She ALSO regaled me with stories of how much she loves her job, although she admitted that eighty-year-old vaginas make her not want to get old, which: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA, I’m sorry, that’s hilarious. I mean, we’re all going to be in possession of one eventually, God willing, but you know, I imagine it’s disconcerting at twenty-five to be face to face with a vagina that has been through a lot more adventure than a fresher, more youthful one.

This whole thing has me sliding down the double-edged sword of guilt, which is always a pleasant excursion. On the one hand, there’s my Sam, whose life I am theoretically about to completely ruin, at least for a little while. I think of it this way: I keep picturing Adam coming home with another wife who is nothing but a needy asshole for the first three to six months, and no matter how many times he tells me he loves me the same he always has, I’d doubt I’d be able to say anything other than, HELLO, YOU BROUGHT HOME ANOTHER WIFE, DICKFACE. And while yes, the sister-wife and I might be BFFs eventually, in the meantime, I am stuck sharing my husband.

That would blow. So here I go, about to bring home a sister-wife to my kid. What a great idea.

On the OTHER hand, I felt like a total shit going into my ultrasounds both times, because each time they asked me if anyone was with me, and both times I was just like, uh, no? Second kid? Also, he’s home with our first, so . . . ? I mean, neither ultrasound experience was all that MAGICAL, because I am a jaded asshole who thinks all babies look the same in utero, and once I know the sex, I’m like, GREAT, THAT LOOKS LIKE AN ARTICHOKE, WHO CARES, DOES SHE HAVE ALL THE RIGHT PARTS?

And — and! — this kid’s a wiggler. An insane wiggler, way more than Sam ever was. The movements! The kicking! AND YET I AM NOT REMOTELY BOWLED OVER BY THE MAGIC. I’m like, meh, kicking. MEH, knock it off. I mean, these thoughts are all secondary to being BEYOND grateful she’s alive and healthy, but you know, with Sam, I was always, LOOK SHE’S KICKING and guiding Adam’s hand lovingly toward my abdomen.

Basically, I feel guilty that I am having a second child that will ruin my first daughter’s life, while simultaneously feeling like a turd because I am not fawning over my second daughter ENOUGH and she’s NOT EVEN BORN. What kind of bullshit racket is this?

(But seriously, will I be excited when she’s born, or will I be all, OH LOOK, a NEWBORN? Call me when you’re TWO.)

Happy Wednesday, folks.

*Avett Brothers

Well, except don’t, because I’m totally kidding, and then we’d all be living in some creepy John Malkovich world. Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich!

[Aside: Anyone else find John Malkovich COMPLETELY sexy, or is that just me?]

The only comment that perplexed me was Maya’s, because I had not previously heard that direction names were going to be popular. I . . . don’t know anyone with a direction name, except for West, who was the contestant on The Bachelorette, i.e., the season that poisoned the entire show for me. I could not TAKE Ashley’s insecurity and her creepy fawning over guys that are literally a dime a dozen up in here. She picked JP, who is a nice guy, but you know, she could have just come up here, hit the bars in Southie and gotten the same guy for a lot less agony and embarrassment, my GOD.

ANYWAY, you guys, I’ve written this all over the place, but since I got pregnant, I am having this ISSUE with my underwear that involves them cutting the inside of my thighs. CUTTING! I HAVE DRAWN BLOOD. And it’s very random, and I have found the solution, but Target only had ONE pack of them and I have to go back to get more. UNTIL THEN, however, I am stuck with my normal supply and OH! the results are not good, which is how I am—God help me—lying in bed as I type this with a smear of Desitin on the inside of each leg. The VERY INSIDE, where there is ACTUAL DAMAGE. DESITIN. That’s DIAPER RASH CREAM for the uninitiated.

(It . . . feels fabulous. No wonder Sam asks for it by name.)

This is worse than the hemorrhoid cream situation of Sam’s gestation.

Speaking of Sam, we have reached the endless narration portion of childhood, because everything that happens in this house needs her running commentary. “Daddy, are you putting on your pants? And your socks? To go to work?” “Mommy, you brush your TEETH?” “Sunny’s walkin’!” And every statement needs acknowledgement, or she repeats it, oh my GOD. The thing is though? I sort of find it endlessly entertaining, as I have most of motherhood, in a surprising way. This should . . . not be news, given that I’ve opted to have a second child, but I’m sort of surprised by how enjoyable it is to have a little chatterbox following me around the house, even when she perpetually asks, “CAN I HELP?” with tasks that would be MUCH FASTER without her assistance. Or—OR!—when her helping with the laundry consists of taking things from the clean dryer and putting them BACK into the (running, full of water) washing machine. NOT HELPFUL.

But you know, it’s kind of hard to stay mad at a kid who wants to help AND is obsessed with a guidebook on Boston terriers (Sunny is a pug, yes . . . long story). You guys, she takes it EVERYWHERE. We do not leave the house without it. We do not go to bed, either for naps OR bedtime, without it. She reads it no fewer than fifteen times a day, out loud. The story, if you were wondering, is simply, “Once upon a time there was a good doggie. He’s so cute. THE END.” And then she closes the book with a remarkable amount of satisfaction, as though she has just read the annotated Lolita and understood every word. (This would make her better than her mother.)

I’m super excited to have another one. But damn, I am terrified, too.

Have a great weekend.

*Peter Gabriel. And I don’t think inner thigh chafing is what he meant.

I am, however, bothered by the Tori Spelling Pregnant Lady Face. I had a chin! Where did it go? WHITHER CHIN AND JAWLINE, FACE?

(It is important to note that I adore Tori Spelling AND her Pregnant Lady Face, because she gives hope to all of us with this terrible affliction.)

Anyway, because I am already unattractive, I have also decided to let my super-short pixie cut grow out, and at this moment, I have reached the critical phase where I can no longer make this shaggy thing into anything even SLIGHTLY presentable, and it is time to call in the professionals. (You know how Dooce looks cute in hers? I do not. Mine does not look like that, despite being the same length. Mine is thick and puffy and matches my Tori Spelling Pregnant Lady Face. Also, there are roots. IT IS TIME FOR A HAIR APPOINTMENT.)

I am using this time for transitions, is what I’m saying, I suppose. Come June 4, I plan to emerge like Ally Sheedy’s character in the Breakfast Club after Claire gets a hold of her. I shall have great hair! Be thin! Have a normal face mere MOMENTS after birth! METAMORPHOSIS.

HAHAHAHAHAHA. Oh, dear. It’s going to be a while.

Anyway. Now that we know that this fetus is a girl, can we talk about names? I mean, she already HAS a great name that we’ve had picked out FOREVER, and so we are D O N E, but I am weeping for all the names we won’t get to use, either because we aren’t having a boy, or because we can’t agree or because they just don’t fit with us or our last name. But really, there will ALWAYS be names left behind, won’t there? My guess is that even Michelle Duggar has Naming Regrets.

SO! Here’s a partial list, and I would LOVE to hear yours:

Boys
Tobias (WEEP)
Alexander (XANDER)
Benjamin (nephew’s name!)
Nicholas (DITTO!)
Nathaniel
Finn
James (JAMIE!)
Callum
Emmett
Beckett
Desmond
Tucker
Cooper
Grady
Griffin
Gus

I COULD GO ON.

Girls
Alexa
Danielle
Stella
Sophie
Alison
Felicity
Cordelia
Olive
Sarah (my favorite. MY FAVORITE. Alas, it’s a no-go.)
Leah
Katherine (KATE!)
Caroline
Natalie

SIGH. Sarah or Natalie or Alexa Rubin will never come to pass. Or Leah. LEAH. Leah Rubin is AWESOME. But no.

Do you have unusable awesome names?

*Yes, I went Rihanna. I DO NOT EVEN KNOW.

It’s a big step from a few weeks ago, when she would literally rend her garments in horror, screaming and wailing as though I was being stabbed by the devil himself. The lowest point was when I had to HOLD HER IN MY ARMS while simultaneously losing my lunch in the toilet bowl.

Baby steps! Baby steps!

I feel better, though obviously not 100 percent, but you know, better in the sense that I’m not sobbing myself to sleep every night because I just! feel! so! SICK! I eat sometimes! I had toast for dinner! THIS IS WINNING!

Also . . . we’re having another girl. I could write a treatise on how horrible my ultrasound experience was, but ultimately, I’m getting a healthy baby girl out of it so far, and Sam is going to have a flipping SISTER. SISTERS! I have a sister, and I love her so, so I am VERY EXCITED ABOUT THIS. (I also have brothers and I love THEM so, so I would be VERY EXCITED about THAT, too.)

But the ultrasound. Oh. Oh my. It was over an hour long, as I flipped from this side to that side, while the (inept) ultrasound tech sighed and prodded, desperately searching for body parts that were either missing or two small, according to her mutterings. “Ugh, heart too tiny!” Jab jab jab. “Leg! The leg is very bad.” She squirted on more gel.

“WHAT?” I was understandably alarmed. “But . . . is something wrong?”

Her only reply was to herself as she made a note on her checklist. “Pulmonary artery missing.”

At this point, my unborn child—the one I conceived after MULTIPLE PREGNANCY LOSSES–had a too-small heart, a bum leg and was missing a major artery. And the tech still hadn’t said a word. I sat up, pulling at the towel at my waist, “STOP. Are you saying these things are BAD?”

She snapped to earth. “Oh! No. I just can’t get a good picture because the heart at this age is so tiny, the leg is blocking the kidneys, and the pulmonary artery is blocked by an arm.”

OKAY THEN. MAYBE REALIZE YOU ARE TALKING IN YOUR OUTSIDE VOICE, THEN.

She then took a moment to peek at the sex—at my request, not her initiative—spent three seconds (I WAS WATCHING), declared it impossible, and when I protested, replied, “I’m not required to do that. It’s not a requirement. I’m happy to have the radiologist explain that to you.”

OH YES, PLEASE. And then, as I sobbed, she simply left the room.

(The end here is that the radiologist came in, found the sex, treated me like a mental patient as I cried, and OH YES I HAVE TO GO BACK NEXT WEEK TO HAVE A RE-DO ANYWAY AHH AHH)

(Yes, this is the same as my Twitter rant, but I HAD TO GET IT OUT THERE.)

Anyway, I’m happy to see you all again. Alas, I am nauseated again! TIME FOR BED.

*Ani DiFranco

That’s a baby INSIDE MY PERSON, still kickin’ it at 12 weeks. Which, considering, is a milestone not without fear, but a happy milestone I will take nonetheless.

Now that it’s out, I hope to see you more often. In between wanting to die of nausea, of course.

But today, oh, today. And yesterday, really. We have an exhausted toddler who refuses to nap, either because she’s going through some kind of MIND EXPLOSION or she’s stubborn or … I don’t know what. I’d say she’s giving up naps except that she’s miserable and exhausted for the rest of the day, passes out somewhere inappropriate later, and then pulls the same screaming stunt at bedtime. By the second day of this, I was greeting Adam at the door in tears — something I’ve never done, not even when Sam was a screaming newborn who refused to close her eyes.

This is usually the time when people like to share how THEIR two-year-old gave up naps, and how it’s totally a possibility! And ho! Good luck to you! And usually I can take those kinds of comments, but this week, I’m just not really in a mental place to be able to hack it without going postal. Advance apologies.

***

I’ve been out of sorts for a little while now, as a close family member is having surgery, and though everything is okay, it’s one of those THINGS that they found by sheer luck, and if they hadn’t found it, things would have been Very Very Bad. As it stands, everything is — and will be — fine, but you know, it’s just … oh, man, I don’t know. My anxiety always comes out in hypochondria, usually by proxy, and it took me a while to nail down exactly why I was feeling so awful these last few days. I hate worrying about people I love, and worse, that just makes me worry about everyone else even more, as though it’s protective.

Poor Adam, in other words. (Sam is immune, saved only by her youth.) By Friday, I’ll have him in the doctor’s for bloodwork, and he’ll be on a special diet by the weekend. Oh, and dentist appointments. Must get the dentist appointments taken care of, because periodontal disease causes heart attacks! Sometimes …

I joke about it, but it’s not that far from the truth. I hate this about myself, and I never really know how to make it better. I do know that staying up late wondering if I have enough life insurance really isn’t the best solution. I am hopeful that once the surgery is successful and over, I will relax a little. Because, man.

***

Speaking of worst-case scenarios, I have several friends who are newly pregnant right now, and I find myself seized with anxiety for them, too. It manifests itself in a funny way, in that I am constantly worried that they don’t know that really, it could happen to them, so they must be ever-vigilant. This makes no sense, and merely serves to underscore my hypochondria-by-proxy and my general anxiety about everything and everyone. Because, I think, even though I knew it could happen to me, I really didn’t believe that it would.

(Side note: this was reinforced by the fact that I saw the heartbeat and people were crowing, “Dramatically reduced risk!” when in fact, according to my doctor who wrote the book on miscarriage — no really, he did! — that apparently isn’t true until you see the heartbeat after ten weeks. Helpful! Or not, really.)

Not that knowing it would or could would have changed anything about how I felt, but I want to somehow change the outcome for other people, or at least their approach to it. This, like everything of its ilk, is impossible and not helpful at all.

**

Speaking of pregnancy, I am afraid to try again. I know I said I wasn’t, and on the one hand, I’m not — I could do another miscarriage and get back up again. I could. It’s just that the miscarriage set off a wave of unfortunate events — death! surgery! marriages ending! — to people I love, and I am irrationally afraid of being the tipping point for another tsunami. I know it was just a coincidence and most of it happened before the year of the rabbit anyway (apparently it’s our year!), but I just … well, it’s something I have to get over, clearly.

I know this is all very maudlin, but it helps me a lot to write it out — sometimes, after writing it all down and walking away and/or talking to some of you about it, I feel better immediately. I’m hoping that’s the case here.

I hope you have a great Tuesday.

*Badly Drawn Boy

I can take it. I can. The last thing I want is for people to tiptoe around me, you know? I’m never good at being perceived as weak, particularly when I’m not really feeling weak. I know that sounds really warped, but I think the idea is that pity makes everything worse. As if, on top of everything else, people feeling sorry for you is … oy, it’s too much to bear, really. It’s similar to the feeling I get when I’m upset about something and someone goes out of their way to be nice to me — it’s not that I don’t appreciate the kindness, it’s that for some reason it just makes everything more acute.

But I really can handle pregnancy announcements. Really. My friend Anna sent me the kindest email telling me about her pregnancy and when I read it, I felt nothing but happy for her, and that, honestly, made me feel like I was really healed, for lack of a better word. And she handled it beautifully — it was kind, it was thoughtful, it was full of mild concern, but it never made me feel like she felt sorry for me. There was no pity. (I don’t think Anna does pity, and that’s one of the things I like about her.)

This probably isn’t making sense. The point is, people who get pregnant now? All good. In a way, we’re all in this together — we’re all trying for more kids, hoping this is the month and oh, look! One of us got lucky first, and it had to be someone, right? Yay, for you! Sincerely, and without a drop of sarcasm. People who were pregnant before I got pregnant? Thrilled for them. I was before, and I still am.

What I do not handle well, relatively speaking, are the people who confided their pregnancies to me at the time that I was also pregnant, or people who announced at the same time, with similar due dates. This includes some close friends. It’s not that I begrudge them, or feel a drop of bitterness towards them — and I speak completely honestly when I say that I don’t, and would tell you if I did, because I sure did that first week, let me tell you. I hated anyone who was pregnant that week, rather indiscriminately.

It’s that I feel embarrassed. Embarrassed! Like this is somehow a personal failing; that I was somehow stupid to believe my pregnancy would make it, but it didn’t. Like people are judging me for telling people when everyone knew this was a possibility, right? Oh, what an idiot she is. Poor Jonna.

There we go again, with the pity. Pity that, by the way, I haven’t seen a drop of, except in my own twisted mind.

I envy them, of course, but again, not in a way that is begrudging or bitter or even directed at them. I’m happy for them — by and large, these are people I really love — but of course, I’m jealous and a little sad, because there will be babies born around that time, and none of them will be mine, and there was a time when it would have been. I think that’s … understandable. But it’s not bitter or angry, it’s just a relatively simple, uncomplicated feeling that only creeps in occasionally. I think about it, give it some air time, and then move on to being happy for them.

But still. I’m weirdly embarrassed, because I know at least one person probably clucked, “Well, this is why you don’t TELL people that early!” as though suffering alone is preferable to having people know what you went through, or why you’re not around, or why you’re sad. As though the act of telling people changed any of the circumstances for the people going through it. Telling people didn’t make me know that I was pregnant — I already knew, and the loss would have been as significant for me no matter who else knew about it.

So no, I don’t regret telling people as early as I did. I have really no regrets about any of that, because it was the fact that everyone knew that made getting through it that much easier.

And yet, there is a wee subgroup of people around whom I am embarrassed. Puzzling, really.

In every day? I am happy. I am great, even, and I’m not exaggerating. I have, at the end of it all, a wonderful life, and I do appreciate it a thousand times more than I did before, and it’s in large part due to what we went through. These aren’t consuming feelings, but isolated ones that crop up and need to be worked through as they happen, and I think writing them down is part of that, however disjointed.

So there you go. Done.

I hope you have an awesome Wednesday.

*Peter Gabriel

Oh, right. So this last week, just to be clear, I wasn’t holed up in some corner, weeping my life away (although I have moments of being pretty bummed out), but I had a deadline and now THAT is done, I feel like … well, a new woman, in a weird way, only because I suddenly have all of this free time. Which: HA! I never had that much to BEGIN with, but when you’re me and you basically get your whole job done in your free time, well, when it returns after a deadline, suddenly life seems RIFE WITH POSSIBILITIES and maybe things like crafting and knitting! SCRAPBOOKING! I SHALL MAKE ALL OF OUR CLOTHES FROM SCRATCH AND START A CAKE BUSINESS!

Except, well, no, the only thing I am remotely decent at is what I do for a living, so I am not on my way to being on Top Chef: Just Desserts OR Project Runway, but am doomed to be a writer and communications professional-type person, and sadly, that is not at all glamorous or exciting and worse, there is no fondant or buttercream or even pretty scraps of paper. What a pile of shit.

So we really are doing okay, with the exception of the occasional disproportionate reaction to something relatively minor. See: our trash. Since the snow has been piling up, we CANNOT get the damn bags to the front of the house without dragging them through four feet of snow, and I know! I know I am prone to hyperbole, but when I say four feet of snow, I REALLY MEAN IT. Our entire yard is covered in four feet of snow, and that’s not even the drifts or the piles where the plow pushed it all, and it’s just getting CRAZY up in here, and there was a time when our driveway could hold five or six cars, and now, so help me, we are running out of room for TWO.

Anyway, so it takes us at least an hour to take out the trash, no kidding, and so Thursday, Adam dragged eleven bags out there, and then, oh my God, on Friday, THE GARBAGE MEN DID NOT TAKE THEM. Which, fine; the bags were white, but IT IS NOT MY FAULT WE USE HEFTY KITCHEN BAGS. BESIDES, THERE WAS ONE BLACK ONE.

And this kind of, um, sent me over the edge, most likely because my neighbor CALLED ME to tell me this happened, and it just felt so MEDDLING and before I knew it, I was calling Adam in near hysterics, because WE WERE GOING TO BE BURIED BY SNOW AND TRASH, SOMEONE SAVE US. And he was literally consoling me about it, because, apparently, trash gets me SUPER UPSET.

Anticlimactic resolution: the trash men came back Saturday morning after I called public works. Oh.

There was also the evening I thought Adam’s (ancient, strangely beloved) Honda was leaking fuel and I worked myself into a tearful lather all, “I SMELL GAS!” and made AAA tow it, but as it turns out, they would NOT tow it unless the fire department came to make sure it was safe to do so, which they did. Unfortunately, they also did it at 9 p.m. while driving a GIANT FIRE TRUCK with LIGHTS and FIREMEN IN UNIFORM AND HELMETS who were all, um, why are we here? To which Adam helpfully shrugged his shoulders and sighed, “My wife smelled fuel. I don’t smell it. Do you?”

Well, no, they didn’t, but it turns out the car DID have an exhaust leak discovered by the repair people and WHAT’S UP NOW?

Beyond that, I’ve had my period for fourteen days (YES, SERIOUSLY), so that might be contributing to the whole, um, sensitivity issue, not to mention the fact that there are, um, POSTPARTUM HORMONE DIPS. Did you know this? I did not know this. I mean, this should be LOGICAL, but it wasn’t until I found myself sweating buckets at night (and demanding that Adam crank up the air conditioning, I DO NOT LIE) and having the same headache for ten days straight that I’m all, I FEEL LIKE I JUST HAD A BABY and then I’m all, OH RIGHT, dumbass, your body kind of thinks you did.

So that’s special.

I have also welcomed wine back into my life with open arms. Trader Joe’s is happy for the sudden spike in revenue, I am certain.

And it’s funny, while I write this all down, it sounds like the day to day is very sad and sweaty and fraught with trash-and fire-type drama, when I promise, it isn’t. Well, until Friday, it was fraught with deadlines and not much else, but even then, as now, it was just pretty normal. We ARE returning to normal, and I completely credit Sam with that. Well, that and the fact that our default buttons are sort of set to “HAPPY.” But really, you have to be normal with a kid around. They’re like wee reflections of our own feelings. Bad mood? Kid will be a nightmare. Crying? Shit, she’s crying too. So we faked it for a little while, and then it started becoming real. She’s a riot, that tiny person who wears my gloves and pretends to be me while scolding the dog and putting her pants on her head. (Um, not that I wear my pants on my head. Well, not OUT, anyway.)

But still, I am shamed to admit, I’d like another one of those.

Happy Monday! Tomorrow I am stocking up on carbon monoxide detectors! JUST BECAUSE.

(What?)

*Talking Heads

Adam’s grandpa’s death was somewhat of a surprise — well, as much as one can be surprised by the death of a grandparent in his eighties who has been in assisted living for several years. And yet, to a degree, it was a surprise. It happened quickly — a broken bone led to a certain medication that led to pneumonia, which was a somewhat familiar pattern he’d pulled out of before, but I suppose this time it wasn’t meant to be. Or rather, it was meant to be, just not as we’d hoped, although it ended as we always knew it would, someday.

Coming with this is the usual mix of regret and sorrow — regret that more effort wasn’t made to spend time at the home while we could; sorrow that things won’t ever be exactly as they were, and for Adam, the loss of the final grandparent. (This is an unfamiliar feeling to me, as the majority of mine were dead and/or certifiably senile before I was old enough to understand.)

These things are always complicated.

The day before he died, we’d gone to see him to say goodbye, which was wrenching, as he wasn’t who we remembered, thanks to a drug-induced coma. I will not — in fact, I refuse — choose to remember him that way, although I hope he heard us. I am fairly certain that he did, in fact, and if he didn’t, that he hears us now.

We came home, watched the Patriots lose, hosted his brother for a quick visit and dinner, (he’d flown in to say his own goodbyes), I hit the bathroom and …

Well, there was spotting. I called the office, scheduled an ultrasound for the next morning and tried to forget about it.

The phone rang at 7:30 a.m. with the call that Grandpa had passed. By 11 a.m., I was in the stirrups as a poor ultrasound technician tried in vain to find a heartbeat on a baby that was supposed to be in its 10th week. By noon, I was sobbing in a strange doctor’s office as he said things were moving quickly (and not in a good way), and that he was afraid I’d end up in the ER if I didn’t schedule a D&C for the next morning.

We’re okay — really, we are. It’s hard not to almost chuckle at the ridiculousness of these events happening within hours of each other, because, well, seriously.

These are things I can live with. I can live without Adam’s grandfather, as much as I don’t want to. I knew someday we’d have to. We can try for another baby–we will try for another baby, as we now know, without a doubt, that we want one. We had one, and now we don’t. It happens.

I can live with that.

I have lived with that, for almost a week now. Despite everything, I have not fallen apart. I have made dinner, slept late, taken naps, laughed at my kid, taken the dog for walks, thought about making plans with friends and have, slowly, returned to the land of the living.

I can do that. I will do that. I love to do that. I can live with these losses, for they are part of life. To some degree, they are expected.

What is killing me, and what is impossible to talk about, but what I have to talk about, because it is eating at me from the inside, is the idea that things will get worse. I can live with what’s happened, I am almost proud of surviving with what’s happened without being broken, but what I cannot shake is the idea that there is some nefarious game show host cackling at an audience of twisted sadists, watching us on the Jumbotron, waiting for just the right moment to shout, “Shall we tell them what’s behind CURTAIN NUMBER THREE?” while the audience erupts in sickening jeers.

Because I’ll tell you: That would break me. And it’s precisely that that keeps me up at night. I lay there, watching Sam on the monitor late into the evening, long after I know she’s safe in bed. I listen to Adam’s soft breathing as he sleeps, terrified of losing the two people who are exactly the reasons I was so grateful through all of this.

For that, I am afraid. For that, and only that, I am not entirely okay.

Beyond that, there were so many things about this situation that were positive.

The doctor who performed my surgery took the time to seek out my husband to tell him how sorry he was for the loss of his grandfather, despite having met me for all of ten minutes the day prior. He was gentle, compassionate and tremendously kind.

And oh, you guys. My husband. It would be almost trite to list out the things he did for me last week, but I will say that I have always known I made a wise choice in selecting my life partner, but that when shit’s really down, he steps up in a way that makes the fantasy man in romantic comedies look like some kind of chump.

I am so, so lucky.

I can’t tell you how I felt every time I got one of your messages, cards, emails, flowers and ridiculous amount of food. Well, okay, actually, I can: I felt loved and touched and tremendously uplifted. Strangers took the time to talk to me about their experiences, and for the love of God, I got emails from some of your MOTHERS and AUNTS — people who know me only because, in their words, I was nice to their daughter on the Internet once. I’m not kidding. Friends took my kid, no questions asked, when I had to rush off to surgery a few hours before I was originally scheduled. My sister drove three hours in a blizzard to get to us. People came by with ready-made dinners and desserts and the Food Lush and Style Lush crew sent enough sweets for a small army of mourners, which was a good thing, as we had said small army staying in our guest rooms.

Thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. It was one of the most special things to ever happen to me, and I am not exaggerating, even in the slightest.

I will remember it always.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

*Death Cab for Cutie