quarta-feira, 19 de outubro de 2016

My second pregnancy


But now it's June 30 and no period...
Part of me wants it
Part of me doesn't.
It will always be so.
I will never be able to be 100% anything.
so let go of that fear,
Not wanting it doesn't mean you don't want it, get it?
One doesn't cancel the other out.

July 1st - The day two pink lines showed up on the stick
I feel full. 

It's all been different (so far) and I couldn't be more grateful
It's like this baby exudes calm. 

When I focus on little embryo-fish…
All curled up in his lenti-sized self with no eyes, arms, legs…
I can't feel scared of it.
I want to protect it and just be me and him. 

September - 
Tummy's getting big and round….
Big and round.
I feel baby's little flutters, wild kicking which for now only feels like ripples and later will feel like a log wedged in my ribs. I remember well. 

Baby - you're so little now, you'd fit int he palm of my hand. 
I don't know how you fit in my life yet, it bewilders me. 
I'm trying to carry on as normal.
I wonder how long I can pull that off. 
Who are you?

January
We have chosen her name: Violet, or Violeta here in the South.
Cora and Violeta. I can imagine her little newborn face.
She's a Violet.
I can see her older, wavy thick hair, she's a Violet.
Sweet strong child.

February 23
I am now on a hot water bag, escalda-pé, massage, floral de bach, buscopan, and synthroid and nexium and cloridrato de sertralina and showers and birthing bal and short walks and yoga regime. And lots of doula-love. 

Violet, we are ready for you!
Can't wait to meet you.
Can't wait to sleep belly DOWN
or even UP again. 

Letter to Violet the night before she was born
Violet, this last month has been a steep learning curve, learning to ride the waves of "what is", of feeling everything from despair, faith, giddiness, boredom, love for your cheeks.
I know i'm scared about us becoming four, about leaving my baby Cora "behind", turning that page…
Because it does make my heart ache.  But I realized yesterday, things have already changed. She's known that for a while. I'm scared of letting her go, opening room for you. But we have to turn the page, which in fact has already been turned. This whole pregnancy has been an intermediary chapter…and I'm tired of being in the middle.
Life is urging us to move on.
I've had 10 months to say goodbye to Cora baby, and she's done a good job of growing up some more.
Her destiny, like yours, will be to grow into her own person, away from me, but, God willing, with me somewhere around.
I know she will be the best big sister for you. She will cherish you, be eager to participate. She is eager and full of teachings.

You can come, love. 
There is a home, a bed (several!), laps, milk, warmth and love on this side. 

I had to let go

I caught myself feeling "at home" today.
I caught myself forgetting BSB
I caught myself loving the familiarity with these streets, the streets that contain this phase of my life
It was a curious and very welcome feeling
Like letting go of a balloon and watching it disappear
into an undistinguishable dot in the sky
That moment when you're not sure if you can still see it
or if it's a speck in your eye, a vague memory.
I had to let go.

sábado, 15 de outubro de 2016

On bleeding and stopping

There are days like these when I feel the bleeding stop.
That inner bleeding that threatened me so frequently over the last weeks, months.
Every now and then, there comes a day like this and gives me survival, sobrevida.
Sometimes these days turn into trampolines and the hemorrhaging stops long enough
enough to make my blood counts go up again, create reserve assets.

When I feel like myself, I can be exhausted, I can be in pain, I can be sick - but I am not threatened by any of it. That's the biggest difference.

When I'm beside myself - the smallest things make the bleeding start up and make me fear for my life.

The metaphor takes a real concrete turn when I remember the hemorrhages I had in both my births -  three total. The feeling of having the life dripping out of me was one of the most powerless moments I have experienced. Just watching, just feeling…not knowing how or when my body would react and make it all stop and get better.

Feeling thankful.

terça-feira, 11 de outubro de 2016

Never entirely home


Since as soon as I remember
There has always been another place, 
I have never been entirely home.
There has always been a piece, missing.
A home, away.
A long distance call to make. 
It got better when I settled down, the past becoming just that….
Till up we went and moved again

My world came crumbling down.

Be patient, I say 
Be kind. These are the hair fractures that can heal with time, 
Like that time you bumped your toe in the same place you had bumped it before and it hurt like hell,
but passed.
Or they can become like that other time, when the nail plain popped out from off my toe
And all went black.