Random Saturday bits

My Google Reader keeps recommending that I read my blog today. It also recommends I read a Panamanian investment blog and a blog written by a woman widowed with twins.

Somehow Google knows I am a grieving Panamanian twin, which is simultaneously terrifying and comforting. At least someone knows.

:::

I didn't mention this earlier, but I am on a raw food elimination diet, and bought a book called the Raw Food Detox Diet. I am not sure how long I can tolerate not eating cooked food, but during these hot months, it is fine. The author suggests eating a Green & Black's 70% dark chocolate bar after dinner. I think I have been abusing this particular part of the diet, since before taking up this particular diet, I didn't eat chocolate any time of the day. *sigh* Still, since my post reconciling my anger with my body, I have dropped something like six pounds.(Sure, it's water weight, but I'm taking anything I can get.) Speaking your anger and shame helps, I am convinced.

:::

My daughter calls every sport soccer. She keeps repeating, "I wear my soccer game hat" which of course, means she is wearing a baseball cap. Shooting hoops this afternoon was met with a "Mama, look, an orange soccer ball." I blame my husband.

:::

I had a lovely brunch with Molly as Beatrice slept through the whole meal. I feel so blessed and lucky to have her in my life. It makes me long to have brunch with other babyloss mamas in real life. It is so damn comforting to talk about anything without having to talk about everything, or be forced into a conversation about nothing because the other person cannot deal with everything.

:::

Here is a story. On a normal December day, the next door neighbor came over with her daughter, who is the same age as Beatrice. And as the girls frolicked about the house, my neighbor told me she was pregnant. It was winter solstice, and I thought my babe would be born that night. I didn't know Lucy was dead yet. I just laughed and talked as I got ready for a baby shower I was attending later in the day. I might have even mentioned that Lucia hadn't been moving much. Later that night, when my nerves got the best of me, and I called the midwives, I frantically called her and asked her to stay with Beatrice until my sister could arrive as we raced to the hospital. I know she was devastated to hear of Lucy's death. Shook to the core, I would venture to say. A new fear invaded her new good news.

You know the rest of my story.

A week later, she came over, so beautifully confident and loving, letting me navigate that raw period of crying and talking and telling the story over and over. She was an amazing support during that time. She was the first person to come to our house (to be honest, only one other non-family person came over to sit with me and talk.) But she asked me direct questions, she was straightforward and earnest. She teared up with me. She told me her doctor told her my type of stillbirth, the one without an underlying medical condition, was so rare, he hadn't had a case of it in his practice. I can only assume now this was her primary care physician/family doctor. But at the time, I thought only of her OB. I mean, she just told me she was pregnant so I was thinking baby doctor. I thought how I could never go to an OB who hadn't dealt with a loss. I want my midwife or OB to have seen every single issue a pregnant woman might face. I want them to be well-rounded in catastrophe. Now, I realize he must have been soothing a very nervous, newly pregnant woman confronted with her new worse case scenario. Me.

Truth be told, though, I haven't thought much about that day with her, even as I have seen her belly grow, heard about her ultrasound results, listened to name ideas, planning for the new sibling...Honestly, I am happy for them, even if their house addition, a new baby bedroom, was the noise issue pushing me into insanity a few weeks ago. But as her baby grows, it reminds me of this grief, planted within me at the same time. Turning, quickening, growing, changing, becoming a new life. This morning, out of my dining room window, I saw her totter out to the car. She is less than a month to her due date now, her due date being literally five days before Lucy's ninth month anniversary. And I wonder too, as she gets closer to birth, what will I birth? What has been gestating in me? In many ways, I hope the same thing as her.

Love.