week seventeen - uneventful

Uneventful is good. Ruth started school believing she would have a much heavier load of kids, but seems to have had a delightful first week. A week from Monday we will know the sex of Sprout (and anatomic details). Back when I was pregnant we didn't find out anatomic details - and I guess it's good to know but also gives me another milestone to get anxious about. I choose to focus on all well right now and curiosity about the sex. Exciting to think that in a week and a bit I can start choosing baby clothes that are not unisex.

Crazy hopeful Grandma

After a long work week, here I sit at the computer, waiting up for the ticker on Ruth's pregnancy blog to jump to week sixteen. Now I now that's nuts. I'm doing it anyway. She's starting back to work after school summer vacation and that scares me. I want to wrap her in cotton batting until this baby is born full term and healthy. And she's fine and there are no warning signs of any kind and loving is all I can do.

OK, the gimo is up - sixteen weeks - in reach of quickening. Grow Sprout, grow!

Superstitious

A friend on a message board titled a post about the death of a friend and the birth of a family baby "Circle of Life." Nothing odd about that - beautifully appropriate. I remembered though that that was the title Ruth used for her blog post right before she told me she was pregnant with Mira. It is a circle, birth and death, a cycle, and being reminded today in this way made me want to knock on wood.

NOT a nightmare phonecall

Last night about midnight, as I was climbing into bed, the phone rang. Turned out it was Bob sweetly wishing me goodnight. We had talked earlier so I wasn't expecting his very loving bedtime call. I panicked when the phone rang and relived answering the phone the night Ruth called from the emergency room bleeding, the night before Mira died. I talked with both Ruth and Chris on the phone in the middle of that terrible night, both of them brave and composed and shaky sounding. Last night nothing terrible happened. I was reminded one more time how sweet and fragile life as we know it is.

Week Fifteen

Hard to believe. Ruth looks beautiful every time I see her. They are fixing up the nursery since life will get busier once the school year starts. I still know how much can go wrong. I know we can't count of a baby in February - a healthy baby home in the comfortably and meticulously designed nest. But oh, am I hoping! I am consciously focusing on the probable good outcome not all the scary possibilities.

Consumer Grandma fantasy

I haven't bought anything yet for Sprout, or for Joanna's babe either. But I caught myself today in the gift store at the Texas State Aquarium looking at "first" puzzles and a sweet stuffed octopus and I probably would have bought something if I hadn't been needed to help my already living grand children figure out how to spend their money.

Fourteen weeks

I'm sitting up too late and jumped back to Ruth's pregnancy blog and saw that the boxes on the side have changed in the last hour - not thirteen weeks, fourteen. She's never been fourteen weeks pregnant before. Apparently Sprout can feel pressure on Ruth's abdomen at this point and will wriggle away if it is poked. I'm trying to remember if I felt that with the girls - the wriggling away. I guess the mom can't feel it at ths point - soon though - soon.