An era ends

Dammit.

The third trimester looms

Lots happening but I'm too tired to write much. My feet and ankles have started swelling and it's getting harder to sleep. Mr. K bought me a body pillow. Hooray for the body pillow.

Evidently post-nasal drip happens to some women during pregnancy because the body is making so much extra mucus. I'm one of those women, and I've been coughing for seven weeks now. Sick. Of. Coughing.

I don't have anything serious to complain about, though. The baby is active and everything seems to be going well. I've found a great chiropractor who specializes in treating pregnant women, and I've hired a doula who comes very, very highly recommended. Tried prenatal yoga yesterday: didn't love it, but should probably stick with it. My balance for the tree pose is somewhat lacking.

I've discovered a marvellous Thai restaurant half a block from work. Gotten lunch from there three times in the past week. Today's lunch (with one of my colleagues, who is leaving in a week or two because he's about to burn out, alas): fish cakes, mango salad, and coconut rice. Yum, yum.

Some guy tried to pick me up as I was walking down Eglinton yesterday. I'm not used to having people try to pick me up, so the whole experience was strange and slightly unsettling. He stopped me to comment on my dangly moonstone necklace, asked several questions I didn't readily understand ("Are they your moonstones?" and "What are you doing?" at the top of the list) (and no, Mr. Friendly, my necklace did not come from the moon), and then said he hoped I'd join him for a beer. Guess he must've missed the wedding ring and the six-months-pregnant belly. Flattering but weird.

C., another colleague who is leaving soon (she's going back to school, and I'm taking over her job for a week starting next Monday until the new guy can get trained), told me today that her sister-in-law just lost her baby at eleven weeks. It's hard to talk about miscarriage: hearing about other people's experiences just dredges up so much pain and sadness. People mean well when they say things like "At least you know you can get pregnant" and "It's for the best," but dammit, all the hopes and dreams that were starting to take root are suddenly devastated, and for a long time every passing pregnant woman or tiny baby is like a knife to the heart. C. and I talked for quite a while; I think she's going to go visit her sister-in-law this weekend to help her grieve.

The Esquivalient One (to whom I wish peace and happiness as she tries to sort out her career and her relationship with her sweetie -- been through the rough patches myself, and yea, verily do they suck) mentions that she is careful about her blogging in order to maintain a narrative flow. A noble, considerate goal, that: makes reading her stuff more than worthwhile. All I have energy for right now, though, is brief little snapsnots such as this one.

I can stop whenever I want to

We were on our way out of the building earlier to do a bit of shopping, and a guy in the elevator noticed me staring at a Sudoku puzzle. "Now when you have to do one of those in the elevator, that's addiction."

So I hit him.

(Not really.)

Pet peeve: the word "soduku," both written and spoken. "Su" means digit in Japanese, and "doku" means "single." I was reading somewhere that people are stupid.

Reunion was marvellous. Started it by working out at the Sports Center (whose selection of free weights sucks, alas: there's not even a squat cage or a proper bench press setup). Watched myself doing sets of 95-pound deadlifts in the mirror, looked at the pregnant belly and the muscular shoulders, and thought, "Yes. Perhaps it is possible that I don't suck as much as I once thought I did."

That moment alone was worth the trip.

Update

1. My grandmother died at about five after one Denver time this afternoon, when all the family members were out of the room and the nurses were getting ready to give her a bath. I knew this was how it was going to happen, that she wasn't going to die with family near her. She held on for more than 72 hours after they stopped giving her fluids. Stubborn as anything, right to the end.

2. Mr. Krapsnart is officially a citizen of Ireland: the certificate arrived this morning. The application process was long and expensive and worrisome, because we were afraid the papers wouldn't come through until after the baby came. But because they did, the baby is now eligible for Irish citizenship as well, and therefore for an EU passport. Mr. K was so happy this morning that there were tears in his eyes. Kiss him: he's Irish.

I might just have a half pint of Guinness this weekend to celebrate. So there.

Absolution

Mimi has not died yet. She is septic and has had a heart attack, and the doctors have given her nothing except morphine for 36 hours, and yet she continues to hang on by her fingernails. Nobody is surprised.

My mother (who has not slept in those same 36 hours) told me in no uncertain terms not even to think about going to Denver. She told me to go to Reunion and take care of this baby. So that's exactly what I'm going to do. Bless my mother.

Saw the midwives today and heard the baby's heartbeat again. I don't get tired of that sound.

I am nearly out of grandparents

1. My classmate's baby did not survive.

2. My 92-year-old grandmother, whom I as a child adored beyond words, will probably not make it through the night.

The years have mitigated my adoration. Oh, the stories that abound about her manipulative nature, her narcissism, even her cruelty toward the people she was supposed to love. Her expectations that unfathomably rude behaviour was, from her, completely acceptable, because she was a Lovely Lady, wasn't she?

Neither my mother nor her sister knows where the will is. Word came out recently that one does exist, and that it disinherits all five of us grandchildren by name. Why is it, then, that she asked one of these grandchildren (the only male) to hold her medical power of attorney? To prompt one last pointless, malignant rift in the family? To show one last time that dammit, she still has control?

I have so many fond memories of being a small child and visiting my grandmother's house. My mother's doll Gary still rests in his pram in the basement, exactly where I'd leave him 30 years ago. I remember how special I felt when I was in that house, how loved I was, how much I enjoyed the little rituals -- the big red chair coming upstairs so that I could be tall enough at the dinner table, the old bellows organ in her living room moaning below the pumping of my feet as I picked out a melody on the keyboard, the giant music box in the room where I'd sleep being cranked into life so that it could play its big steel discs of old, old songs.

The visits became infrequent after we moved east, two thousand miles away, when I was four. My parents tell me I lamented moving so far away because it meant that I couldn't live in the house next door to Mimi and take care of her when she got old. For years the letters and presents came, and Mimi's telephone number and the melody it made when I called it are still burned into my brain.

It wasn't until years later that I understood why we'd moved.

The tales of the machinations, the snubs, the cutting remarks, the moments of high and manufactured drama: these aren't really mine to tell, as she was only ever sweet and gentle to me. But the effects of her carefully concealed, vicious nature poisoned my upbringing something fierce. My grandmother, Iago.

Next weekend is my fifteen-year university reunion. I've registered and paid, and we cashed in a pile of frequent flier miles in order to go. I was already girding for an emotionally draining experience -- being back in the area where I went to university always makes me sob unpredictably and uncontrollably, for reasons I don't yet completely understand -- but I need to go. I need to see the campus that I still dream about, I need to see my dear friend AM (she is a couple of weeks more pregnant than I am, and she did so much to help me get through my time there), and I need to show the place to my baby, even if my baby is still in utero.

I am terribly conflicted, though, about not going to Mimi's funeral. The major reason I'd want to go is to support my mother, who was and is so damaged by her own mother. But I know that the politicking (now there's a charitable word) among the extended family is going to be nearly unbearable. The financial reasons not to go are not inconsiderable, either. Everyone I've talked to tells me to skip the funeral, go to Reunion, and get my mother up here in a month or two, when the initial shock has worn off and the real, far more solitary mourning has begun.

But the little, innocent, loving four-year-old Emily would never understand in a million years.

I don't know what to do.

Wow.

Last week David Bowie showed up for the encore of a David Gilmour show at the Royal Albert Hall, and helped out with the vocals on "Comfortably Numb."

The thought of hearing Bowie's voice singing "Hello... is there anybody in there? Just nod if you can hear me..." makes me weak. I think if I'd been there I might have passed out.

Update: yes. Oh, yes, oh, yes.

P. S. I am very amused to note that mentioning my nipples on Fark resulted in a whole bunch of hits on this site yesterday and today.

Twenty-two weeks

Today brought an e-mail from the instructor of the fitness class, reporting that one of the classmates gave birth last Saturday. At twenty-three weeks. The baby weighs about a pound and has a brain hemhorrage from which he may or may not recover.

Various people are organizing to drop off food at the parents' house. I'm hoping to make a quiche or lasagna or something tomorrow evening after I get home from work so that we can drop it off on Saturday morning. I don't even remember which woman this is and I still spent a bit of the afternoon alone in the teachers' room sobbing. (Evidently pregnant women are sensitive. 'Cause, you know, I wasn't nearly sensitive enough before.) Jefus Chrift.

Dear our baby: please stay in the oven a while longer. You're not ready to come out yet.