7/26/21
Please make me brave. I’ll train however you want, however I should. Please…make me brave enough to calmly and happily face birth when the time comes. When the time comes, let no alarm sound within me. Let no fear inside me – keep it all away from me. Don’t allow it anywhere near me: protect me with love, and courage, and wisdom. Shield me with humor and kindness – let them drip thickly over me, from my head to the floor- covering me completely- anoint me with humor and kindness, and bless me with a pure heart. Be with me, Lord. Protect me with the strength of women and the strength of my ancestors, and with the strength of my son’s ancestors. When the time comes, draw close to me the energies and presences of the best baby-birthers of the world who’ve come before me – put me in touch with them – connect us. Make me brave enough to safely birth my son, and to make my husband proud. Please remove from me, now and permanently, all chickenshit tendencies. I am willing and asking – please lead me. Thank you for this baby. Amen.
7/27/21
i feel like the person in me/impending birth didn’t really feel real to me all this time, until just this last month of it. I think because he’s moving so much now – it seems like…every hour or so, I can feel him squirming, moving, pushing hard against me. And I can feel him low now, low in my abdomen – he feels big and long to me now, instead of just like a jumping bean. Like I can almost picture how his human body looks, from the way he moves plus where inside me I feel him.
7/28/21
Got my first covid vaccine (Pfizer) on 7/21 last week. Have to do 2nd one on 8/11. It wasn’t bad; the Walmart pharmacist was cute, so I didn’t mind that he pinched me : ) He resembled R a little, but R is much cuter. My left arm just was sore the next day (I could still lift stuff though), and less sore the next, and I think I hardly felt it anymore by the third day. No “sick” symptoms or anything. My next shot I’m going to ask for it in my right arm, so it’s balanced out.
This past week, things like changing the name of my Chewy autoship from “Baby and Snowflake” to just “Snowflakes”, looking at Baby’s bed where he always used to sleep in my room, gathering up the towels he last lay on to wash them with the laundry, seeing his water bowl put away, even feeding Snowflake the treats that I fed Baby on his last day that he really liked – all made me really sad/made it wash over me again. I thought about what I might have done different, but I think the euthanasia session went as smoothly as possible – the only thing I wish I did was, I wish I went in and put my face close to his and bumped his head one last time, before she administered the lethal IV (I wasn’t really sure what was happening and was really upset, and wanted to give the vets their working space), so he could smell me and see me more closely right before he died. But I was right there at his feet when they did it. We were outside and I was holding him in my lap, and he squirmed a few times before the vet even got there cause he wanted to go back inside, but I wanted to keep us outside for it. It was one of the worst, sinking, devastating feelings of my life, holding Baby there on the bench outside, knowing what was coming. At least mom was sitting there beside me, it helped. I had been holding him in my lap the whole time except handed him over for the sedative, then after the sedative we laid him down on the soft grass, and from then on I wasn’t super close to him – I was just by his feet and sometimes reached up to stroke him – bc I wanted to give the vets their space to do their thing. But that’s the only thing I would have changed- it seemed pretty peaceful otherwise- he didn’t even jump when they gave him the sedative (i was feeding him treats by the handful during- this probably distracted him?).
7/29/21
something just occurred to me when I was praying for R in the middle of the day. I just took a break from my work and closed my eyes and was praying the thing I always pray for him: “Thank you for my husband God. May he be the most blessed man in all the world.” I just realized like…maybe that’s why I got pregnant – because I keep praying for R to be blessed, and…and part of being blessed, for him, is having children, even though I was trying not to get pregnant. Even though I wasn’t trying to…I think…if this blesses him…I really want it. I just never considered before that…a blessing to him was coming through me – through my very body. I was imagining outside blessings when I prayed for him- things like money and status and protection, cars, houses, more like concrete things? But I just realized this, and it made me happy that my prayer is being answered, and it makes me want to go through with it more. Go through with it completely, see it through to the end. The baby thing. If I can bless him – give him something with my body- surely, oh my God – I want to. Sign me up.
7/30/21
I feel like pregnancy for me didn’t really start to get difficult until this last month- the eighth month. It’s kind of hard to move now, and i really get out of breath easily now. I’m glad it’s only 30 more days, but at the same time, i feel like it’s all happening too fast and wish i had more time to prepare with stuff like settling into the new house, reading more about baby care….
Was thinking how I’m kind of glad Baby was a grumpy cat, because if he was 100% sweet and polite and adorable, I don’t think I could’ve taken his death… I think it might’ve killed me, the sadness of missing him, if he were a perfectly adorable cat. Like I actually- for real- feel blessed now for the times he’d bite me out of nowhere and shit all over the house, bc these things lessen the blow, in a way, for me. At the same time, I feel like I’d take every chomp of my leg and clean every shit with joy, if he could just be here with me now, alive and healthy, is how much i miss him. it feels hollow there, in the middle of my chest, where he used to be. it hurts.
Marriage Journal 