6/29/21

last night going to bed, while I was massaging up R’s leg, I think the combination of thinking of him and touching him made me feel in love. So I said to him, “Grude?” and he said “Yes Amor?” and I said, “Te amo.” And he said, “Vc tambem. Você é a pessoa mais importante da minha vida.” I thought I knew what he said, but maybe I looked unsure, so he translated for me in English, he said, “You’re the most important person in my life.” I guess I didn’t really think about it like that, but after he said that, I thought of everyone else in my life, and then I thought of him, and I decided it was true for me too, so I said, “Voce tambem para mim. Por mim.” Idk if I said it right lol. But I think he knew what I was saying. After I said “te amo,” I just thought he would say “me too” and that would be that. But he said this other thing- it was different, and nice, seemed sincere and honest, and made me think.

7/1/21

You hear the thunder, and then you see the rain. Hear the good news within yourself until you get the reaction that satisfies. This cloud or feeling covers or hides the manner of enfoldment or expression. You don’t know how, when, where, or through what source your prayer will be answered – that is the secret of your deeper mind. It has ways you know not of. But you know it is going to rain for you, because your consciousness is saturated, and you are filled full of the feeling of being what you long to be.

– Joseph Murphy

6/20/21

R did something that I thought was cute last night…he was working at our house all day from like 7 AM to 10 at night (finishing painting the walls and ceiling now, tiling the kitchen area…) and came home and was tired, and I got into bed with him and my right thigh was still hurting (just woke up w/it hurting the other day), so he insisted on massaging it, he sat up and gave it a really good massage, like one of the best he’s ever given me, and it was long massage too, so when I noted how long it was going on, I raised my head up a little and looked at him and at first it looked like he was staring intently at the spot on my thigh he was massaging, but then I realized he’d fallen asleep while rubbing me (his head was dropped down sleeping), and I was like oh no and pulled him down to me and shut off the light. Oh my Grude.

6/22/21

Today all day (at least from when I woke up until now at 12:30 PM) there has been no direct sunlight and the sky’s looked like it’s about to rain – it’s bright, but no like yellow light, and no rain. I think there’s a big thunderstorm warning that’s currently affecting the whole surrounding area. Idk why but this sky and this weather makes me feel…in my element, the most comfortable and…focused, and me. It feels sacred, this light. Like I feel everything I do in this light is holy. I feel like I have more time, like something’s on pause. Sometimes when it’s really sunny, I feel like the world’s going too fast for me/the energy around me is too high.

6/24/21

At first I thought maybe the childbirth class was too expensive (it was $250 for the one-time, 3-hr class) but now I think that it was worth it. cause I’ve been practicing the breathing a lot and…it’s not just for the birth, I realized- it’s to relax in everyday life. Yes the birth too, but also afterwards – way beyond – to relieve stress and deal with pain/center yourself in the moment. And if I’d read it in a book or just seen a video about it, I feel like it maybe wouldn’t have had as much impact or been as important to me to practice as when it was me and R and the teacher, just one on one, all gathered together and focused on one subject, in a nice peaceful place. It was worth it- it’s a good memory now and I’m glad we did it.

6/11/21

“imagination and faith are the two pillars that lead to the holy of holies.”

“the acceptance of the desire is the answered prayer.”

 – joseph murphy

Decided that (because I haven’t walked in nature/outside in what seems like 2 weeks or so) that if my body wakes me up and I’m not super tired, even if it’s 5 in the morning (6 is ideal I think), that I will get up, go out and walk the field. cause I miss it. It’ll be my rule from now on…I thought I was helping my body by getting “max amount” of sleep by just going back to sleep the few times I wake up before I “have” to, but…when I don’t go out for too long, it makes me feel a little cabin fever/trapped, I think, and blocks some freeflow of thought that I like, blocks maybe some communion with God that I like.

6/15/21

“i’m glad the midwives were so nice to John. They seemed to make up for all that I lacked so that it was perfect all the time.”

“The temptation was to close my eyes and fall back into a world of pain. When I did, they called me back. Another temptation was to arch my back in contraction; they guided me to stay relaxed and let the sensations flow through me, not to try to stop them.”

-quotes from Spiritual Midwifery by Ina May Gaskin

6/16/21

on Sunday, me and R went to a 3-hr childbirth class in the teacher’s backyard in Delran, it’s the only pre-birth education we’ve done together and probably will do. It was really nice out and though the sky was a little rain-threatening, it didn’t rain, and her backyard was peaceful and full of all kinds of plants and interesting animal statues and she had a veggie garden on the other side. We learned breathing techniques to relax during labor. They’re pretty simple. Something she said while teaching us the breaths struck me that I really liked – she said the influx of oxygen from this deep breathing is something that alkalinizes the body, and that disease can’t be present in an alkaline body. I’ve been practicing the simplest breath (she taught us three kinds) like the past two days every so often, and this morning while doing it in silence early morning in my room, realized something: I don’t have to be at the ocean. I can become the ocean. At the beginning of the pregnancy I was looking for birthing centers next to the ocean (couldn’t find any), and periodically throughout the pregnancy too, was kind of lamenting that I couldn’t give birth near/at the ocean, which for some reason that I can’t name, I had always dreamed of doing if I was to give birth. But when I was doing the breaths this morning, I realized that the in and the long out…it sounded exactly like the tide coming in and going out. That’s what I mean by becoming the ocean. It just felt cool and I felt happy when I realized it—that I don’t have to travel all the way to it—I can bring it to me, and any time I want.

6/17/21

With birth coming up, I’ve been thinking more about pain/the nature of pain. This morning while making R’s bed, was thinking…first there is the actual pain (which does that even exist?) and then there is your personal experience of the pain. Then I thought…I think…I think all that’s real is your experience of it, because that’s all you really feel – not the “actual” pain. How you experience it. And…experience can be shaped, influenced, controlled.

6/18/21

Was leaning back on my hands today taking a break from work and looked down at my belly (was naked in my room) and could see it rippling a little, the surface of its skin, from baby moving. Was fascinated; it made me smile big watching and wondering. How something so apart from me with its own body, swimming with a mind of its own..can be a part of me.

6/19/21

“Faith is simply an awareness that that which you are praying for, already is. The mere fact you desire it proves that it exists.” -joseph murphy

I don’t know how to describe what I’ve been feeling the last week/few days except to say “huger.” I just feel more huge. In the mirror, I think it doesn’t look like it really- I just look like a “normal” pregnant person for my small size, things look pretty much in proportion. But: I’m losing my breath more easily and getting lightheaded in any prolonged position or positions I didn’t consider constrictive before, such as just sitting in the passenger seat while someone’s driving. It almost hurts now- belly area- when I get up too fast – feels like a whole big package connected to my abdomen is swinging (I guess it is) and I’m hauling it (I guess I am), and everything is just a little more uncomfortable: sitting, lying down, getting up, even walking. So much extra weight. I noticed I can’t fit as much in my stomach lately- I have to eat really small meals- my meals have turned snack-size- cause there’s like less and less and less room…physically, overall, this is such an overwhelming experience. He’s still moving all the time tho, and I love him.

6/7/21

something kind of vain – a memory I keep remembering that I like to remember that is kind of self-flattering- but it makes me feel good to remember:  that one day a few years ago when I ran into ____ when rounding a corner in reading terminal market during my lunch break, and when we talked about this encounter shortly after- we were talking about his then-current-girlfriend and he said running into me that day made him realize that…the way he felt when he saw me—THAT’S how you’re supposed to feel when you see the person you’re with- like, a lot of attraction/a leap in your heart, is what I think he meant.  It made me feel…good, luscious, totally desired to hear this- to hear that I made him feel like this- I didn’t realize it. I never thought someone would say something like that to me. it’s a good memory that I hold on to and indulge every so often. …..I feel this whenever I look at R. My heart turns round and round and lights up, like the spinning teacups ride at the amusement park at dusk.

6/8/21

my belly can hold up my shirts now, when I pull them up. the shirt doesn’t fall back down. lol

6/9/21

ever since I heard this (on Joseph Murphy audiobook Living without Strain) like last week, I love this sentence and have been thinking of it frequently. It went, “You are not punished FOR your sins, but BY your sins.” As in: there is no like external God-force punishing you for sins that HE perceives are sins. You yourself—because of the quality of your deeds- the goodness of your deeds, the purity of your motivations and deeds—the lack or abundance of love and goodness in the deeds THEMSELVES is what ultimately “punishes” or I think maybe more appropriately- teaches/reforms you. I love how it implies that it all comes down to truth and purity at your core, and not someone else’s perception of it.

6/10/21

starting this week/last week, my stomach juts out so far now that no matter how I twist and turn in the shower, I can’t see my pussy when I’m washing it bc my belly blocks my view—I just do it by feel/memory, now. I miss being able to see it. the extra reassurance of sight…. but I trust it’s still there; I can feel it.

Lately I think I feel him kicking more and a little harder. This morning, he was moving continuously for hours since I woke up. Sometimes I just lay in bed, holding my round stomach and smiling feeling him move, trying to imagine what his little body looks like doing swimmer somersaults in there. Sometimes it feels like he is just knocking, like, “hello??? when do I get out?” and sometimes when I’m just like walking around throughout day it feels like he’s giving me “reminder” kicks, like, “take your prenatal!” or “feed me now!”

5/29/21

“Thoughts are things, and the spirit inside of you is God.” – Joseph Murphy, Living Without Strain audiobook

5/30/21

dream this morning: Was going up the side of a tall building in an elevator, to somewhere I wanted to go, somewhere I was excited to go. But the elevator was more like scaffolding, flimsy, that like window washers use. I was standing on like a single square board of thin plywood with cream-colored canvas material coming down all four sides for “walls” and everything was held together by just single ropes tied in single knots. And I was headed really high- I was only on floor 100-something, going to floor 200-something, and it was going fast like lightning speed so everything was rocking, and I was scared, swinging in this thing and just holding onto the ropes at the sides. I was afraid it was going to flip and I would fall out from really high, or it would break. I think another passenger, a man I didn’t know, got in with me at one point and I felt better, but he got out again before I reached the top I think. That’s all I remember, I don’t know if I reached the top or fell out in the dream.

I keep thinking: if women can have their babies while in a coma, if a girl can be at her prom, excuse herself and have her baby in the restroom and come back out to join the party again…it doesn’t have to be a big deal, right? I think it’s all in your mind, meaning what you are making of it in your mind, what you expect and are anticipating or intend (on all unconscious, subconscious, conscious levels) that makes it come true. What do I want? And what am I still afraid of?

“blow out those birthday candles on your cake like you’re a hundred years old.” – Susun Weed, while leading a guided trance

6/5/21

To my son:

Thank you for changing me. My mind and my body. I like these changes – this mental and physical stretching outwards and forwards into what I never imagined possible. I want to change. I want it with all my heart, and I want you with all my heart. Please forgive me if I am afraid, please forgive my weakness and fear and small-mindedness, now as you’re tucked away, and later as you grow in the world. I’ll do my best, God help me. I want you with all my heart.

5/23/21

the past week, this new funny feeling. It doesn’t feel good, but it’s not bad – just weird/uncomfortable. It’s hard to describe – it’s like I’m even more filled with fluid/blood than I was before. At random times, even while just sitting down, the feeling like blood rushing to the head when you stand up too fast, though I haven’t made any movement. I guess lightheadedness is what it is. At the ultrasound last month, when I was lying on my back, the technician mentioned to let her know if I felt lightheaded cause she knew it was common around this time, and at the time she said it, I had no idea what she was talking about- I felt fine (and lucky I’d escaped whatever she was talking about). But I think I know now. It doesn’t take much for this feeling to come; it comes when I’m just sitting not doing much, and goes right up to the point of almost-nausea, but I wouldn’t call it nausea. Just almost-nausea, and weird off-balance feeling.

Also, I feel like in the last two days, my belly/lower abdomen area hit a growth spurt, because multiple different underwears around the hips started feeling too tight, even when I pull them down as low as possible while still wearing them, which wasn’t the case before. I think I’m just puffing out more around this whole area, tho I feel like my arms and legs and everything else is pretty much the same size as ever. Just whole belly+thighs area. It’s even getting uncomfortable to sit normally like I always did (cross legged on a bed or on the floor, just sitting in a fucking chair or on the couch)….it just feels best to lay down and stretch out sometimes.

Still feeling baby move every day, at random times. It seemed like this weekend, it was whenever I got hungry. Me and R pretended he was kicking me saying, “feed me!” and we were laughing.

I think I’ve never before in my life…felt so entitled to…take up space. Because for me alone, I wouldn’t do it, holding the logic of “it’s just me – it’s not worth it.” But now…I’m carrying this other person, so it feels like: “I’m going to take up as much space as I need for us.” I feel different. I walk and stand with my hands on my hips more I think. Not in a bad attitude way- I think in a …just “allow me my space” way. And it feels right. I never imagined I would move through life like this, with this changed attitude. but there’s just this new feeling of: if you’re taking care of somebody, they need their space, and you need space to care for them.

Lately, feel myself doing everything (I mean physically) more slowly. idk. I just feel like I’m moving underwater sometimes, like it’s hard to haul my whole body places. I think it’s just the extra weight that’s making me feel this way. It’s just a little annoying to me though, because my mind still moves fast as ever…it’s just my body that’s slower. R asked if I’ll feel like a big weight has lifted off me after I have the baby, and I said I didn’t think so, cause it took 9 months to gain it all, so it’ll probably be lost gradually too, rather than instantly.

5/25/21

This morning, dreamt that I looked down and knew/felt that baby was about to push some body parts against my stomach so that the shape of them jutted out, and I wondered which ones they would be (elbow? face? foot?) before he did. The first push, it was one hand and the first half of his penis, I saw the shapes clearly defined rising out of my skin. The second push, it was the other hand (or maybe one foot). That’s all I remember. It was cool, and weird. I never had a dream like that. My belly skin was thin and elastic like Stretch Armstrong.

5/26/21

Heard in my head while walking this morning: With every passing moment, you must get braver. And you must learn how to relax DESPITE. Meaning: learn to relax despite pain, relax despite irritation, relax despite distractions, relax despite discomfort, relax despite fear. (Did I ever in my life have this skill? It seems not, because I never consciously tried attaining it, until now. Now I feel like this is a mandatory skill I need to attain and perfect, to prepare for his birth day.)

“If you find yourself holding your breath, reduce your load ASAP. Breathing incorrectly can increase your blood pressure and decrease the flow of blood to your baby.” -5 Easy and Safe Pregnancy Exercises’ article on Parents.com

5/16/21

never felt like it was more urgent than now for me to learn to manage my stress effectively: tonight got stressed (didn’t have time to do all the chores I wanted to do this weekend) and felt my belly get hard, tight, crampy, and just felt bad—it made me a little worried for the baby, which is why I feel it is so urgent now to get my emotional shit together/better lubricated. It feels like I can’t do things half-hearted or half-assed or fail at all anymore, because someone else is involved now, someone other than myself. Like with everything I attempt, it feels like there’s more at stake now.

5/17/21

for some reason today it’s so much harder to walk and move and bend over and everything—my belly feels like it got even bigger like overnight. I feel…pressure/soreness all around this area, including legs, inner legs, lower back, etc.

I figured out what the baby moving feels like, as I was lying in bed this morning before work, around 8, just feeling him move with my hand on my stomach (even until almost 9 am he was still moving). I was trying to anticipate with my hand where he would “thump” and was moving my hand around as he thumped, the little thumper, and realized that it feels like he is another, bigger heart moving around in there, and it’s just beating everywhere he moves, beating really strong. That’s what he feels like to me – a giant heart. If I never saw the ultrasound I could never picture he has a human body, bc he just feels like a big traveling heart.

5/18/21

at the doc’s office they weighed me today at 118 lbs.

Had a thought today that maybe I want to tell R if I get a chance. It was and is: I think it’s kind of…sexy, to be carrying his baby. Like…he put it inside of me, like a…secret, that I’m always keeping. Something just between us, that only we share. I’m so happy that it’s ours. I couldn’t have dreamed up a better partner or husband: his cuteness still startles me, his masculinity still like overpowers and overwhelms me, in the best way. I was shocked at first, at the beginning, because we weren’t planning for a baby at all. But…now…I’m glad. Even tho I still get (rarer and rarer) twinges of nervousness, the steady undercurrent feeling that was there from the beginning and that seems to be growing every day and overtaking all other feelings is: this feels right and serendipitous.

5/19/21

I’m getting used to feeling him move because I feel him move in there every day now, maybe several times a day. But I also just can’t get used to the idea that someone is just flipping around doing swim kicks in there – another person in there. That’s kind of what it feels like to me –when those lap swimmers who swim the lanes reach the end of their lane and flip at the end to start swimming the other direction. It feels like faint thumping/splashing.

they told me at the doc appt yesterday that I am 25 weeks already. That’s over halfway there. When I think about that, I feel…a little rushed, like I need more time to prepare. It seemed like just yesterday I just found out I was pregnant/was just 3 months. And now that time has doubled. It’s going so fast.

After reading more birth stories today, got this picture in my mind. It was: the most gorgeous and sexy man I know- who happens to be my husband- gave me a key. A key to the doors of life and death- a pass. The baby is the pass—the baby is what lets me go further than non-pregnant, non-birthing people. With the baby inside me—I’m allowed all the way up to the gates of life and death, at the time of birth— if I get to the end, if I reach that time. I can walk right up and stand there and see what’s there and experience it, only because of R—because of what we created together- what he put inside me. Maybe he can’t personally himself go up to stand at these gates (he did say that he wondered what it was like to be pregnant), but…he gave me the key, and he’s allowed ME to. Like, it’s an opportunity to see further- to see a little further into a mystery of life, what’s there. I won’t waste my chance. I won’t be ungrateful and I won’t shut him out – I’ll include him every way I can. I’ll try to remember everything I can, so I can tell him how it was when I come back down to earth, and I’ll thank him.

Pregnancy: what if, instead of something to endure, it’s something to savor. (It goes by so fast, a short time in relation to your whole life)

Was reading an article about orgasmic birth on What To Expect website and this one part made me laugh so hard: “Whatever you choose to do, don’t consider having an orgasm during labor a goal or something to add to your birth plan.” I just imagined a woman so intent on having an orgasm during birth that she neurotically aggressively is using a dildo like while the baby is coming out. Like if that was her one birth goal, to have the ultimate orgasm.

5/20/21

today was lying on my right side again stretching out in bed in the afternoon after (trying) to take a nap, feeling very leisurely, and felt a kicking episode. This one was a little different because I felt so many jabs, and felt a 1-2 jab that I never felt before that made me laugh—that move felt like he was extra excited to get out, cause usually it’s just single jabs spaced further apart.

my belly button used to be an “o” in the mirror. now it looks like a straight line, because my belly expanding so much and stretching out far.

5/21/21

was looking in the mirror this morning at how big my belly is, and thought, “there’s no denying it anymore, once you look like this.”

this late afternoon, out of nowhere, lying on my side in bed, feeling sober after a nap, the baby made me crack up—like I had a giggling fit suddenly, because I felt him pressing and jabbing me while I laid so still and it seemed like he’s trying to get out. Like escape. I pictured him wearing those old-fashioned jail uniforms that are all black-and-white striped with the matching hat, baby size, pressing on all the walls of my uterus trying to find an exit. I was laughing out loud in my room, and it made me feel good.

it’s almost as if my nakedness protects me.

5/10/21

it seems like every time I feel him move, I hold my breath, involuntarily. I think it’s cause…I want to see what else he does and not disturb the movements he was going to do with any of my own movement, like how you freeze when you cross paths with an animal in the wild…but logically…it probably doesn’t make him move more whether I hold my breath or not.

have been really into milk lately. Have been drinking a lot of chocolate milk the past few weeks, and started eating more cereal with milk. When I pour the milk into the cereal, I pour extra so I’ll have some left over to drink after the cereal’s done.

5/11/21

How the pregnancy is changing my body (heavier load to carry all the time, shifted and shifting center of gravity, beach-ball-like obstacle in the way of all attempted positions) is kind of making me move more pitifully, in my opinion. Like I think if I were outside my body watching myself move, I’d feel a little sorry for myself: I’m out of breath and huffing and puffing after a few stairs, I need to hold onto something each time I get up—and do it much more slowly—or I can’t stand up, I’m like reaching and rolling from wherever I am to avoid the energy-draining task of just standing up, I’m sighing and moaning and groaning like an old man, I’m walking different, maybe waddling a little- my gait is definitely different in some way that is just coming naturally to me because of my changed and changing body. I wish I didn’t have to move like this, but…I feel all this weight on me now, and it’s my natural reaction. I guess I could try more consciously to think more lightly, to move more lightly…maybe that would make a small difference. I miss lying on my stomach and stretching out that way. When I feel like lying on my stomach, my substitute move has been just getting on all fours and just rocking and sometimes sticking my ass up in the air in this position and rocking.

5/12/21

11:00 AM – felt a few minutes of kicking/thumping around. If I’m not smiling at the moment, it always catches me off guard and makes me smile. Felt him moving pretty constantly until like 11:21! I was sitting down on the floor at laptop, and it was after I ate a lot (fruit crepes and then seafood w/rice)

Around 6:25 pm felt him moving again, I had just had a snack of garlic kale chips and then a little cheesecake.

5/13/21

today while staring at my belly I thought, “this is fucking incredible.” I’ve just never looked at it so much in my life, so often. Or imagined it holding something…like this. Like, a son, moving and growing- a person with a soul. Double spirits inside me—mine and his. And I never imagined it could take this shape—this like round beautiful pear shape, sloping down and jutting out more towards the bottom. That it could expand so much.

Still felt him moving today at random times. When I would feel it and put my hand there, he would stop or move to another area, so it’s hard for me to have my hand exactly where he’s pushing at the time, tho that’s what I’m trying to do hehe.

I’m eating as much as I want and pretty much whatever I want (which I think is mostly healthy stuff). I think I’m even overeating usually. But I can’t bring myself to get on the scale and weigh myself; I don’t want to see the number bc I know it must be over 110 by now- a number I’ve never come close to in my life previously. I know I should be gaining weight with the baby growing, and I accept it and I’m not doing anything unhealthy with my diet or anything (I’m really enjoying eating), but I just realized…how deeply this notion for girls to ideally be small and light is ingrained within me. Like it scares me to think of looking at the number- I don’t want to see the number.

Had this thought while reading a birth story last night in which the couple were surprised with a boy. The author wrote: “We were sure he was a girl. Then we saw the cord and something more: We realized he was a boy. What a big surprise for us! I was happy that Viktor, after so many women in his life during our time together, had his male companion at last.” I think most of this time, I’ve just been thinking about myself: how I’M going to get through the pain and manage the pain and intensity of birth, the ideal conditions for me and the baby, what the baby needs, etc. And these are all really important things to consider, but…I didn’t also consider, until last night when reading this story, this notion of…GIVING Rodrigo a son, a male companion with whom he can (at least initially on a biological level maybe) relate more easily to than a girl. Like I never thought that…this might be something really very precious to him: a boy who is his little buddy (as he is the only boy in a family of four sisters), all to himself, who (in a small way at least) belongs to him. It just made me happy, that I could do this for my husband, when I realized this. Maybe the thought of giving him this gift is something that will help push me forward and over the edge during the birth if I am too afraid or overwhelmed to go on. It makes sense that the thought would be for him—the linchpin thought—and not for myself. Like it feels better/more fitting to me that the thought that might help me cross over is not for myself, but for someone I love.

5/14/21

I’m seeing a theme in the birth stories I’m reading in Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth book. First contractions start which is a period of time you can be distracted, take walks, take bath, kiss husband. Then it gradually becomes more intense to the point where like ppl are doing stuff for you/asking you stuff but you can’t really respond at all in words- your body is in another mode, focused. Then at like full dilation, you reach this point of the greatest “pain”, where many women shout/think, “I can’t do this anymore” (this is the point I read from other sources that most women ask for epidural, when they’re almost there). And then right after this begins the pushing, which I’ve read several accounts now is a relief/ is exhilarating/ feels powerful. And when the baby’s head is crowning, it makes you feel stinging/burning/like you are shitting a bowling ball. One woman was so sure the baby was coming out her butt (she kept telling the midwives it was; they assured her it wasn’t). And after the head is out, the rest usually slides out easily. And then 1/2 hr later the placenta comes out but is like nothing compared to the baby, bc “it doesn’t have any bones.” Makes sense. For me the lesson is like…when you think you can’t take it anymore- at that point- just hold on a little longer, cause you’re almost there. Like life, kind of.

Feel baby kicking (in the same place for once!) around 2:40 pm. Pretty constant for a minute, it was just after I got off a call w/someone who I knew she was gonna call, but didn’t expect Facetime so I wasn’t prepared (had hair all up messy and glasses on), and was sweating a little from nervousness the whole time bc of unpreparedness, so maybe it was my adrenaline surging that he felt that was making him kick.

11:49 pm feel him thumping around again = ) just sitting at computer shopping for baby buntings for winter. He’s still moving at 12:12 am

5/15/21

Felt him moving around 10 when I was just sitting by the window reading in the morning, he moved for at least a few minutes.

5/3/21

feel especially good today and have more energy than usual after waking up, not sure why bc went to sleep pretty late last night (after midnight/1). Possible reasons: just pregnancy hormones? got sunlight and ate like all day and every thing I wanted yesterday, PLUS napped when I wanted (had a lazy Sunday)? Bc I went to house later in the day and actually did something (helped R put nematodes on lawn and it was hard work and also got allergic reaction on way home, I think it was to pollen, and the aftermath of feeling bad/such an allergic reaction is feeling a lot better, kind of like how it is ecstatic relief to rest between contractions?) Cloudy today, so don’t have to deal with harsh bright light? A combination of these factors?

I think I felt him for the first time today, moving inside me. the other times, I wasn’t sure…the other times, it felt like something heavy just sloshing around in response to my OWN body’s movements. But today, around 6:35 pm, just after I ate some salad with pieces of fried chicken and honey mustard dressing, I laid down on my right side on my bed while checking Instagram/texting R. So I was still, yet I felt…I felt movement. It wasn’t a harsh jab kind of feeling. It was more like something tumbling there. My stomach moving on its own, from the inside. I put my hand to my skin there and felt it a few more times. Little “jumps” on my left side, pretty low- like where the ovaries are- when I was feeling it, my fingers almost touched my pubic bone. Was so fucking amazed…just laid there with my mouth open staring at the ceiling waiting for more from him. I wonder what he’s doing in there…it seems like he’s just spinning around lol. I sat up and thought maybe to lie on my left side because they say that’s the best side for blood flow, but I didn’t feel like it and just laid back down on my right side, waiting for more and more movement from him. But it only seemed to last like a minute or less…then I gave up and stood back up and went on with my day.

Prayer that emerged from me shortly after: You’ll be your own person, even though you came from my body. I’ll let you be whoever you are. Whoever you are. I’ll love you no matter how different you are from me. Teach me. Welcome.

5/4/21

if a baby is a claustrophobic person, do you think he tries to get born earlier? to get out? what if all miscarriages/preemies are just claustrophobic ppl?

5/6/21

still having vivid food dreams. This afternoon dreamt of eating a cereal like Pops or Honeycomb (cereals i ate as a kid).

R just called me on the way home from work tonight, he was falling asleep driving to our house cause he was so tired. We talked about how I just read you can put the baby on moss with no diapers and that will soak up pee and prevent diaper rash cause no diapers. I said I was shopping for moss, he said okay we can do that and we were laughing. We talked about what we did today, how I dreamed of cereal when I took a nap. He worked far away in Florham NJ again. How mom asked me what I wanted to eat and I told her exactly (tortellini with pesto sauce and veggies, and also cereal and milk) and she and dad went out to Trader Joe’s to get it for me. He laughed and said he was glad they’re so nice to me. Yeah me too I said. We talked for a while about everything, for like 15 minutes, then he said he was okay now and almost at the house. I thought it was cute that he called me when he was tired…I like to help him.

5/7/21

last night, R came home from work, and we were getting our dinner in the kitchen, and he said, “Do you like the name Harry?” I said “mmyeah.” and he said, “Harry Paxton Lau-Reis. That’s his name then, it’s settled.” lol. It sounded to me tho like he was just tired of wondering about what the name will be and just wanted to choose something to get it over with. I’m not tired of searching yet…though the length of the lists of names is daunting. I want to find one that really clicks with me.

5/8/21

“A mass divestment from what harms us.” – Thenjiwe McHarris, Movement for Black Lives

4/26/21

“My doula told me, ‘Let’s prepare in our minds for the level of pain we’re expecting and double that and see what we would want to do if that happens.'” -Jamie-Lynn Sigler

still having random wet gushes daily, and sometimes when I smell the crotch of the undie before tossing into the hamper, I think it smells delicious. It smells good. I think my body has never produced this much clear liquid before.

4/27/21

pretty horny all the time now, even more than R is, it seems. but I’m afraid that…once the baby comes, any damage/soreness down there that needs to heal, paired with psychological and hormonal changes of transitioning into parent role, paired with baby sucking at my breast, paired with sleep deprivation and worries, paired with who knows what else, that I won’t feel like having sex or sexual until I’m at “peace” and feel “normal” again. I can almost see this happening already, before it even happens. I don’t know how I would mitigate this, or if I even should—like if it’s just inevitable / a phase that needs to happen. I just don’t like the idea of our sex drives getting drastically out of sync, because they’ve never been that way before.

for a second tonight in the shower, on the way bending down, before I reached full squat and subsequently felt the heaviness of the baby ricocheting within me, I remembered what it felt like to be me – the 15-pounds-lighter-how-i-always-was me, light airy me how I always was. It was just a second, but I remembered and I felt it, and I thought:  “this isn’t going to last forever. this is just a passing phase.” I thought even:  “enjoy these brief months of heaviness and strangeness and out-of-character, because you’re going right back to how you were, and then you might look back on this phase with longing, as if it went by too fast.” Be in every moment, and thank God for it.

4/28/21

“I know I should be afraid, but the fear is just not coming.” – belle hart, Mating Wolves 1

5/1/21

I feel kind of lucky that I can still cut (and still see) my toenails myself. it’s a bit of a strain and I’m sticking my knees out and twisting my foot in, but I can still do it. I think I would hate for someone else to have to do my personal grooming for me.