Am I doing it wrong?

Sometimes I think I'm doing this wrong.

Lately, in the weeks since your brother has become stronger and more active, as we are less and less worried about the defect that hurt you so badly, we are starting to become attached to this tiny manchild that still makes me throw up on a regular basis. This is still a very different pregnancy. I was trying to put it into words with Daddy today. It's as if I believed the assumption that I would have a living child by Christmas, but I never actually believed you would be born (and dammit, it still doesn't make sense). Never really feel like an actual baby would arrive, never really believed I'd be a parent. Lately, its the opposite. I actually am starting to believe that he will be here, breathing and pink and alive, but I can't just assume it will actually happen. Even though when I was assuming you'd arrive but I couldn't believe it.

I'm talking in circles, but I guess I'm thinking in them too.

I feel like I'm doing this wrong because I'm starting to get attached to him. Starting to love him and want him and prepare for him, in different ways than I loved you. I never had the luxury of really preparing for you to arrive. We found out you were a boy for sure the same day we found you were leaving us. I'm pragmatic and concrete, and I couldn't plan for a baby I knew so little about. Call me sexist for needing a peek between the legs before I could get anywhere, but its true. The idea that there's an entire person inside me is so hard to fathom that not even knowing if you were a boy or a girl was just one disembodying step too far for me to follow. Now that we know more about little E he's becoming more of a "real" boy to us.

Aren't I supposed to still feel all detached? Aren't I supposed to be withholding my heart to protect myself? Aren't I supposed to doubt until he's safely here? I look in the mirror and I see this glowing, joyous pregnant woman. I picture him in ways I never really pictured you. Isn't that wrong? Isn't it too soon? Isn't this premature celebration?

Could it be the coin toss is in our favor?

I feel like I should apologize. So much has happened and I've neglected this blog. I talk to you often, but I don't sit and organize my thoughts the way I should. Plus, there's that beautiful kitchen...
If I had "before" pictures I'd share them, but that damn kitchen was so hideous I never bothered.

But so much more than that has happened. We had the next ultrasound, and found that your little brother is doing beautifully. Thus far, he seems to have all of his parts. Unless something goes terribly awry, or some other horrible unrelated thing pops up, we are past the point of having to make any heartbreaking choices.

This has changed things for me. For one thing, I've finally started to connect with your brother. And to worry about him. Though he's been kicking even more than you did, he's still small enough that he can hide, and I'll go hours without any little thumps and flutters. And my mind fills with terrible images of him floating limply inside me, gone cold and silent just when things seemed to be going so well.

Another thing I've had trouble with is his name. I usually think of him as Edward, and feel like he's a very different little boy than you were. But sometimes your name comes to mind first and then I feel guilty twice over--once for not spending as much time talking to or thinking about you, and again for not being able to give myself fully to your brother.

Its very confusing. I'm happy and I'm guilty and I'm nervous and I'm hopeful. Hopeful! Is it really even okay to say that? Can we really say that your brother undoubtedly has fingers and toes, even if we have to wait for him to get bigger to count them all and make sure they're in the right places? And he was a very good boy--he stretched out his hands and wiggled and squirmed and showed off.

I never know what to feel anymore but I seem to be feeling EVERYTHING. Often at once.

Optimism

I am so exhausted from all of the emotion of the day that I'm not giving this a proper post here. I will. But things are looking good. We saw arms and legs and fingers and everything we should see, where it should be. The bones aren't calcified enough to show up well, so that will be next time. But from what we could see...everything looks...normal.