16 Weeks and 7 Innings

I'm officially on Day 2 of Week 22. For those of you who (like me, 23 weeks ago) have only the vaguest understanding of human gestation, an average pregnancy is around 40 weeks. In other words, I'm more than halfway there by any average measure. In my specific case, I am even closer to the finish line, because we will be scheduling a C-section for 38 weeks. 16 weeks to go, in other words. That doesn't sound too long -- but on the other hand, it was 16 weeks ago today that i started having trouble walking. That seems like a very long time ago. I don't know why I bring this up, except I guess to describe my conflicted feelings. I love the intimate connection with my little canteloupe inside -- in some ways, I wish I could be pregnant forever. I also feel petulant sometimes, like I want to stomp my feet and demand the chance to have a "normal" pregnancy (whatever that means); at times like that, I feel a bit cheated, because my miraculous mommy experience is marred by all this other medical baloney. Then there are definitely moments when I don't want that 38th week to come at all, because I am afraid of what comes next -- how D and I will cope with a newborn on top of my disability, whether I'll succumb to post-partum depression (or worse) before I can get my medication regimen sorted out again, and a host of other fears plague me at those times. And sometimes, I just want it to be over!! I just want her out, so I can meet her properly, but also so I can start to get better, because I have an intuition that once the baby has left the building and my hormones start getting back to some sort of normal (again, whatever that means), my neurological problems are going to start to resolve themselves. By this time next year, I plan to have fully recovered and to be taking a ballroom dancing class with my hubby. Or maybe tennis lessons? Jumping out of airplanes? Maybe just walking around the house with Baby in my arms.

It looks hot outside. I haven't been out yet, but I type these messages from my home office, which has a nice, big window overlooking our neighbors' back yards (and our side yard). I see random construction types wandering around, and I note the uniform blue of the hazy sky and the crunchy-looking grass. Everything looks hot. They finally graded the landscape of our last adjacent neighbor [note: they did this with very loud machinery, from around 7:25 until 8:30, when I finally gave up and got out of bed, at which time they stopped and no one has so much as whispered 'Boo' outside my windows], which should mean that soon they'll put down sod and take down the ugly black tarp/fence between our yards.

The kids went with their Daddy and Papa to their first Orioles game last night. It was a big hit. S got a pink O's t-shirt (they do all the major league teams in pink now) and was put on the Jumbo-tron for dancing around like a goon (eliciting, I'm told, a scream of delight), and R got a proper t-shirt and a spin on the swing set when he got fidgety. R is probably still a tiny bit young to fully enjoy the game, and especially for 7 innings, but S was fascinated and kept track of all the balls and strikes, outs and innings. It helped immensely that D has been teaching them to play with a tee in our back yard; they understand the rudiments of the game, which helped them to understand what they were seeing. When they got home last night, D looked like Steve Martin in that scene from Parenthood, wearing his own jersey and ball cap, and carrying bags of souvenirs and with a big, tired smile. My heart was full of love. I am so happy it went well -- he was so excited to share one of his passions with the littl'uns. Although I don't know the O's that well yet, I am a baseball fan, too. It's one of the things I shared with my mom when I was little. Lying on our tummies on the living room floor in front of the television set, watching the Pirates play, eating cherries out of the bowl and listening to the crickets through the open window . . . one of those sensory memories that will never leave me. As for R, one of his favorite parts seemed to be just being outside late at night. With sparkling eyes and a delighted smile, he told me it was so dark, and there were stars all around, and a wind blowing things out of people's hands . . . God, sometimes the love is so strong you don't even know what to do.