Tomorrow is a big day

Ruth and Chris go for the first sonogram of Sprout. (Please be alive Sprout, and whole and well and in the right place. Please, please be alive.)

Day by day

is definitely the way I am taking this pregnancy. I think back to how in the pregnancy with Mira I called Ruth my pregnant daughter every time I saw her. I asked her if that was alright with her and she just smiled and expressed pleasure with the earned label. This time I'm less open, less playful, and I hope that doesn't take away from the joy of this pregnancy. I am eager to hold Sprout in my arms, hopeful, excited - but keeping my emotions down, biding my time. Truth is that's no protection from grieving a loss though, every loss is a loss. I'm letting myself attach more and more to the idea of Sprout.

And Ruth is nervous too

waiting for the ultrasound. We both hope more than anything that Sprout is still growing and alive. It doesn't help that I talked to a woman today who was miscarrying at seven weeks. We have no symptoms, that I know of, no reason to be nervous, just are.

Nervous

No reason to be. Ruth seems fine. I've read a few other pregnancy loss blogs - people who were just fine at seven weeks and had later losses, like Ruth did with Mira. I'm sad for them and just hoping that this time, this little one, called Sprout by loving parents, will thrive.

Landmark

This pregnancy is now further advanced that Ruth's pregnancy with Mira was when she learned she was pregnant. It's still early, but reassuring - first small reassurance for me. i commented to Chris yesterday that it was his first Father's Day pregnant and asked him how that felt. His answer was essentially if not verbatim, "nerve-racking." But all seems well. Ruth looks beautiful and I find myself more excited and less worried - and of course nothing is ever sure. Right now it just feels good to enjoy each day she's pregnant as a day she's pregnant.

Important correction

Eight years. Ruth and Chris have been maried EIGHT years not six. Time and numbers have never been my strengthe but the axiom that time flies faster as I get older seems true. Blessings to that beutiful sustaining marriage even if I can't gget the numbers right.

mixed musings

Mira died three months ago today. And Ruth and Chris have been married six years. The new baby's heart, according to the books, should have started beating.
I talked to Ruth last night and all seems well, with appropriate and impressive doubling rates on betas, which mean a growing babe (babes?). It's so odd for me. In the pregnancy with Mira I went around with bounce in my step reminding myself every few hours "Ruth is pregnant!" and smiling involuntarily. This time (and it is earlier than we knew about Mira so in a way it makes sense), I feel more a whisper than a shout, a "Ruth is pregnant - please - still." Life seems even more precious and hope both more tenuous and more vital.

I have a friend who is pregnant too - due at Halloween, and the secondary mourning concept applies to that pregnancy too because her husband is in the middle of chemo for a very deadly cancer. When he was diagnosed a year and a half ago the odds of his living this long were about nil, but they got involved in an experimental trial of treatment at Duke and his tumor has shrunk dramatically and there seems real hope that he will hold his baby - even live years to see his child grow. I feel myself struggling not to kill him off in my head, not to assume a sad result, to see every good day as a good day and to enjoy and celebrate without thinking "for now". I know this situation brings up memories of my own first husband's cancer treatment days and they were far too short - ended in death seven months after diagnosis. That's the thing with secondary experience, way too easy to paste one's own on somebody else's. That was then and us. this is now and them.

And the biopsy results of my sister-in-law with metastasied breast cancer don't look hopeful - and yet they are hoping -taking life in twenty minute chunks (sometimes literal, someteims metaphoric twenty minute chunks). Again, I am thinking about the secondary mourning theme, keeping the focus on and taking the lead from them. We are going to visit them in July and I'm scared. I want to carry the tone they need into this situation, not what I guess I would need or what I needed years ago in another situation. My prayer is that I can follow not try to lead - that I can abide.

whisper

I whisper "stay".
I whisper"grow."
I whisper "please."
Please live. Don't go.

still pregnant - more hopeful

Strong pregnancy test this morning and Ru feeling better regarding symptoms of possible ectopic pregnancy - monitoring with blood tests for a few days, more comfortable with doctor's office. The line that showed the baby's presence on the home pregnancy test this morning was dark and visible, like the test line. She says she sees two lines for two lives, hers and the babe's. That touches me. Second little line, please please grow into someone I can hold and know.

worrying

Ruth had an ob appointment today, supposedly to see if the pregnancy is uterine and maybe to see a heartbeat on the sonogram - but her belief that it was too early was right. The doctor miscaluculated and sent them home (after charging them). THen Ruth started having back pain and cramping and was feeling faint started worrying about an ectopic pregnancy, was told by the doctor's office that it didn't sound like she was in danger, got an apology phone call from the doctor, and now is feeling better physically. I'm scared. I don't want to fear everything will go wrong and can't trust everything will go right. I do trust Ruth will go to the ER if symptoms worsen so I'm not really scared for her life, just worried that this dream will blow apoart now or any other moment during the next eight months - such a fragile dream.

odd (good odd)

Its so odd that Ruth is pregnant again. I'm saying the words in the same sentence again - Ruth and pregnant. It scares me. I don't believe in jinxes or that we can control outcomes one way or another. It still scares me. I am reserving my emotions, its so early, but there is definitely hope.

Today Ruth took me with her to try on a bridesmaid's dress she will be wearing in late October and she folded a scarf into the belly area to simulate a five month bump. I felt sad thinking she'd be bigger than that with Mira now - and also hopeful. She looked lovely in her golden mermaid dress, and will, pregnant or not.

And I hope she will still be pregnant. I hope. I hope.