Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Crazy talk

You’ll never believe… So it turns out that it wasn’t the weaning that was making me grouchy and moody…. I'm—get this—pregnant. Pregnant. Omigawd. O. My. I’ve been having this achy sensation in my womb but thought maybe I was getting ready to start my period any minute, and then yesterday I decided to take a pregnancy test on a whim. As I was tearing the wrapper I was thinking, “This is a waste of $5 because it’s going to be negative. Why don’t I just not take it and wait another couple of weeks and save the money?” But, since I often give in to irrational desires, I unwrapped it. I watched the wetness slide across the viewing window on the stick and it immediately showed a + symbol. I thought maybe that was the “test” section and didn’t mean anything at all, so I yanked the box from under the sink to check what the symbols meant, and by golly… Then I yelled for Mitch, who by the tone of my voice thought something was wrong with Frances. He just looked at me when I showed him the stick, sort of a blank look that wasn’t frightened or especially happy, just curious. He says it doesn’t yet seem real to him. We took Frances to the Museum of Life and Science and the whole time I walked around saying to Mitch, “Did you know your wife is pregnant?” or “Hey guess what? Pregnant,” or “Wow, I could really use a nap since I’m pregnant.”

Did I mention that conceiving Frances took two full years and four attempts at intra-uterine insemination fertility treatments? I'd already made an appointment for next week with the fertility doctor, which I now need to call and cancel. Well, it saves us some money and energy!

There was a cute woman in a snappy wrap dress today at the grocery. We were standing at the deli together waiting to be waited on, and she asked how old Frances is. When I told her, she said she had a 3-week old at home. Wow—she looked amazing in her stylish little wrap dress! I was lucky to be standing upright 3 weeks after Frances was born… Had a twinge of something akin to jealousy, or fear about the next one, or something. Yesterday I was all excited thinking there will be another, another little babe to hold, another little person with little person smiles, but today I’m nervous. I drove to Winston this morning to my mother’s house, over an hour away, to have lunch at my mother’s with an old friend of mine and her children. The friend has a 17-year old (this child was born when she was in high school—the scandal of the year!) and now she has an 18 month old and a 3 year old. Note: 18 months apart. Which is about what I’m looking at here. So I asked questions, and she admits that she doesn’t leave the house with them much because it’s so difficult. And my gawd—she even has a teenager/ 2nd mother to help out! What in the hell am I going to do with 2 babies so close together??? My friend Erynn’s younger sister had two pregnancies very close together and the second turned out to be twins. So now she’s got 3 children under two. How how how? How does one not lose one’s mind? Or perhaps I will indeed lose my mind. Perhaps this is just the thing I need… Perhaps then I could let go of attempts to “hold it together” because, really, we all know that’s an illusion anyway. There’s no “together” to hold. We’re all floating in space, completely out of control of nearly anything that happens in our lives. We like to build up these images of ourselves as somehow responsible, but it’s all a farce. Ah, to be able to see that clearly~ It only comes in glimpses for me.

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