7/17/21
omg.. he was moving so much just now (it’s past midnight, just had a tuna salad snack and am naked reclining back, on laptop reviewing journal) that I had to stop what I was doing—it was very distracting—and was cracking up, staring down at my belly moving. at one point I even asked incredulously out loud alone in my room, “what are you DOING?” and laughing. R said a funny thing today when we were taking a break while working on the house- how it would be cool if my belly became see-through when I got pregnant, and I totally agreed – I feel like he is doing the craziest stunts in there, and I wish I could see them.
7/20/21
so all these things kind of culminated and this afternoon made me start crying suddenly hard even while I was eating my turkey wrap in bed. I was sobbing hard and quietly (to not upset other ppl in the house) and wiping my face with my dress and typing for work and eating at the same time:
1. Sleep has been way disturbed for the past three nights starting Sat night, when I think I actually got 0 hours of sleep, worrying about if Baby wants to go downstairs for something (he wants to sleep in my room upstairs, his back legs stopped working so he can’ t walk so we carry him everywhere)
2. Euthanasia ppl coming this Thurs night to euthanize Baby, I arranged for it and will pay for it and everything…stressed about if it really is painless, how it will go…
3. At that moment was getting tons of work and even with RHA helping it was hard to keep up cause they sent it kind of all at once
4. my back hurts so much I can hardly walk – it feels a herculean task to get out of bed or to just go to bathroom across the hall (I think this is combo of working too hard with R on house this weekend plus added weight of baby)
5. oh yeah- having a baby in like a month, looking in mirror at myself from the side actually scared me today, bc of how big I am now—I got scared bc I don’t know what will happen- in that moment my stomach just seemed so out-of-proportion big in relation to my body that I got freaked, I broke down a little wondering if it will hurt a lot, if I can handle it, and started praying and crying
6. The house is still not done, we’ve still got a lot to do before moving in, which I also can’t really help out with bc I’m so pregnant.
7/22/21
the baby feels longer, or sitting lower, or something, bc I can feel something in my lower abdomen where before I didn’t – the space used to be more freed up. like when I lift my legs now, there’s resistance there, where there wasn’t before. and he feels heavier – when I get up from bed now (maybe I shouldn’t get up so suddenly), I feel his heavy weight “float” down, and subsequently pushing down, like on my bladder.
I just realized that most of this pregnancy, my dominant feeling has been: shocked. Because I’m 7, almost 8 months in, and when I think about it, I still can’t believe a live human person is going to be coming out of my body.
I’m not sure the term “kicking” is very accurate. From that term, I had imagined (and was afraid of) the baby directly like pummeling my inner organs with his hands and feet, which I thought would be painful. But it’s not painful at all; I find it really funny…”kicking” for me is more like my stomach just jumping around, and the pressure is from the inside pushing out – I don’t feel it on my organs really. Maybe he’s really kicking, but I think there’s so much fluid around him, that it doesn’t feel like, soccer-ball-kicking.
7/23/21
I can’t believe how much it helped me to talk to R last night after Baby (cat) was euthanized. When he came home, he brought a potted white orchid which looked really pretty and all kinds of chocolate which really touched my heart, he ate dinner right away with me instead of showering first, then he showered and we ate dessert together and watched an episode of Shrill, then went down to bed and talked for what seemed a long time, maybe an hour, while I massaged him. Something he told me that felt really touching and helped was that the scientist Stephen Hawking, after one of his friends died, he sent that friend’s wife a letter saying something like this friend’s energy and substance and presence still exists somewhere—on a timeline/dimension that we maybe can’t access from here, but he nonetheless still exists.
7/24/21
my stomach feels lower, or bigger, or both, bc now when I bend/sit, I can feel my stomach right on top of my thighs, where I never did before. And my undies are hugging my waist even tighter than before, if that was possible…a little uncomfortable, but bearable.
Marriage Journal 