I love you, but you're creeping me out. But I love you. But you're creeping me out.

I have felt fiercely and intensely attached to Margot lately.

It's really no wonder why, I know - I'm living through our days mourning the loss of her first sibling - and truly, overall, I'm okay. I really am okay. But I can't say it comes as a surprise that my heart is glomming on to this girl of mine at an exponential rate while I grieve. 

I hadn't even really noticed until just recently, when I realized how frequently I flip through photos of her on my phone when I'm not around her. Whether I'm away from her at work, or whether I'm one floor beneath her while she's down for her afternoon nap, or whether I've put her to bed only a short time prior at the end of the day - it's only moments before I'm picking up my phone and looking at all the pictures I've taken of her in the recent past. 

I ache with missing her while she's sleeping. While she's awake, we're usually attached to one another; either I'm holding her, or she's sitting on my lap, or nuzzling in the crook of my neck, or laughing and smiling her biggest smiles while my stomach hurts from laughing so hard. We're having amazing days together. I don't know whether to attribute these moments to a higher level of patience and love for her, or to some heightened sense of awareness that she's picked up in light of my grief. But whatever the reason, she is without a doubt pouring excess amounts of light into my life. 

I took this picture of her this morning, while she was watching Daryl drive off to work, and waving goodbye to him, and I haven't been able to stop looking at it all day. I posted it on Facebook and on Instagram and I wish I had it posted on the inside of my eyelids so that I could stare at it incessantly. She's beautiful and charming and magic and I can't stop wondering how on earth I got this tiny human - how I got so lucky so as to have her to call my own - because she's just unspeakably amazing. I told her today that she's brought me to joy I didn't even know existed before I had her. 

Something weird happened today, though. I almost don't want to write about it because it's surely going to make one of us sound like a looney tune; but at the risk of that, I'm regaling you with a story about the creepiest thing that happened to me all day. I have a serious love for creepy, but this was a little over the line. 

"Baby gone. Baby. Baby. Baby gone. Baby gone." 

I wish you all knew how well Margot speaks - because this story could easily be discredited on the assumption that she's just a tiny girl, with a limited vocabulary, and a garbled one at that; but for those of you who can attest, please stand with me here when I say that Margot has a truly exceptional talent with speech. If there's a word that you can say, she can say it. She started talking at 9 months old; and now, at almost 20 months, she's pretty easy to understand. So as I tell you this story, please take my word when I say there's no doubt as to whether I was misconstruing her words. She speaks clear as a bell. 

"Baby gone." 

We were running errands today, driving from Costco to the co-op in our neighborhood, and she was blabbering on in the backseat, as toddlers are wont to do, and I was paying her almost no attention, as mothers are [ashamedly] occasionally wont to do. I eventually started to pay her some mind, though, because, well, that kind of just naturally happens when a tiny little voice is repeating the same thing over and over three feet behind your head. So I asked her, "What, Margot? Baby gone?"

"Yes. Baby. Baby, mama. Baby gone." 

Thinking nothing of it, I said, "Huh..? Baby? What baby?" 

"Baby. Baby gone." 

"The baby is gone? Where did the baby go?" Okay...I'd indulge her. I had no idea where this was going.

"Baby sick. Tired. Baby gone. Tired." 

"Gone?" This was starting to get weird.

"Yes. Baby tired. Sick. Baby gone." She continued. 

It got weird. I got creeped. I can't stress this enough: neither Daryl nor I have ever - EVER - talked to her about this loss. About this pregnancy, about a sibling, about miscarriage. She's also the youngest in the pack when it comes to our friend group; she doesn't have babies in her life. Now I'm not suggesting she's telepathic, or otherwise intuitive on some otherworldly level, but can I get an amen when I say that this creeped the crap out of me? No..? K maybe it's just me. But for the life of me I can't figure out what she was talking about. And it didn't end there. I decided to indulge her further.

"Margot, what baby? Was the baby a boy or a girl?" 

"Girl." 

"Pardon?"

"Girl." 

Okay... whatever. I have no idea who she's talking about. She goes on for another minute or two, talking about this baby who was sick, and tired, and is now gone. I was still driving, still listening to the radio, but with some serious wheels grinding in the back of my head. Then, about five minutes later, after some silence, she says, "Baby come." And again. She's stuck on repeat.

"Baby come? Huh?" I said. What does that even mean? Does she even know the word "come"? Probably, but I have no idea. 

"Yes. Baby come. Baby come." 

"..........Is....a baby...coming?" I ask. 

"Yes." 

Okay. I'm not going to travel down some weird road here, but I also won't ignore the niggling feeling that she could be feeling a pull toward me just as strongly as the one I'm feeling toward her. Either that or she's the creepiest human being I've ever met. 

Three to four to three

Being pregnant for only two months was a weird thing. It wasn't something I thought I'd have gone through; especially since I spent the first bit of it so busy toddler-wrangling that I often forgot that I was even pregnant at all. Now, though, it's the opposite. The sting feels most severe every time I forget that I'm not pregnant anymore. And when I remember, I get that sinking feeling in my stomach.

I remember that I don't have to haul out my maternity clothing anymore. Or worry about how I'll bend over Margot's crib every night with a growing belly getting in the way. I remind myself that there's no more immediate need to think about how to rearrange her room, or to daydream about what she's going to be like as a big sister. I remember that it's okay to do things like have a glass of wine with dinner, take a hot bath, or take some ibuprofen to subside my pounding headache that hasn't passed in over two days. 

Pregnancy has a way about it - when I first found out, I was slammed with all kinds of feelings; and naturally, I mentally signed on for an ensuing 36 weeks, give or take, of a beautifully exciting and terrifying roller coaster ride of emotional and physical experiences. I signed on the dotted line and never expected anybody to rip that contract up. I was going to end up with a baby in the spring - so what's happening? Why am I so empty all of a sudden? 

Upon realizing I was pregnant, though, coming to terms with the idea that I was going to go through pregnancy and childbirth and everything that goes along with that for a second time around, I faced feelings I was altogether not expecting to feel. For starters, we hadn't been actively trying for this baby. To say that it was a surprise isn't quite right, but unexpected - yes. Entirely. 

I didn't totally know how to be happy. It's not that I wasn't overarchingly so, or that I didn't understand that this was a wholly amazing experience about to unfold before me, but I didn't fully grasp the concept of how to physically rejoice in knowing I was about to bring forth a new little baby into a household with a preexisting toddler in it. 

As far as kids go, the idea of zero to one was, for me, fantastic. It was great. Sure, it was terrifying at more times than one, and overwhelming and crazy, but hey - there was a baby coming! We were going to have a baby! She'd sleep, she'd poop, she'd cry, and she'd make cute little garbled noises. And she'd be fun. It'd be good. 

One to two, though, that's just bat shit crazy. How was I supposed to do that?! Are there services offered wherein we might outsource toddler A until we had a steady handle on baby B? I'm not suggesting this would have been a forever thing; five years max. But no, wait... I didn't want to do life without Margot in it every step of the way. And so where was this baby going to fit in to all this? I had heard a lot of times that women expecting their second child worry how on earth they'll find enough love in their hearts to measure up to how they feel about their firstborns - but my hesitation wasn't so much about the love quotient as it was about whether I wouldn't be so busy making sure Margot wasn't tossing cat poop around in the litter box that I wouldn't accidentally leave my new baby strapped safely in its car seat, sitting atop the roof of the car in our driveway, for reasons completely unbeknownst to me. And then when I'd realize, whether I'd yell out a half-hearted, well-meaning apology to the baby - "I'm so sorry, babe - I'll be back in an hour as soon as I can just get some of my shit together inside...Please don't take this personally..." And then figure this must be the precise moment and reason for which all children born after the Almighty Firstborn end up fending for themselves thanks to a mutual understanding that, yeah, if you want to eat lunch today you're just going to have to fix yourself your own sandwich. And also if you could take a series of selfies every now and again, I need some materials to toss into your baby book. Thanks. Oh and yeah by "baby book" I do mean a little Ziploc bag containing your dried-up bellybutton and somebody else's bandaid. ("OKAY WHO PUT THEIR BANDAID IN THE BABY'S KEEPSAKE BAGGIE?")

I felt like I was living in a very tangible moment of history. It almost felt more like history than like present, really; because it occurred to me that we would hardly remember the days that went by before our second baby joined our family; and might the memories one day fizzle out altogether? No - I wanted to make a concerted effort to keep them from disappearing. 

And now that we're back to where we started, back with each other and no new little growing babe on our horizon, well, absorbing each blessing, every day and every shred of grace and love is a project I'm working on with all my heart, limbs and senses. This time we have with our sweet girl, this time we have as a family of three, is exactly perfect in spite of what we've lost. This is our meantime - our time that's passing no more quickly or slowly than it's meant to; and I'm taking in every breath with deep gratitude. The passing of our sweet second baby will never be lost on me; but I don't dare let that loss take away from the beautiful present that's unfolding before me at a dizzying rate.

Eight weeks nine weeks no weeks

I never thought I'd be announcing a pregnancy this way. It just never occurred to me that at this stage I'd be talking about my second pregnancy as something that's already been and gone.

I didn't realize that the first time I'd blog about it I'd be reflecting on how I never got the chance to birth, meet, name, give life, or show love to my second baby.

When I went in for an early ultrasound at eight weeks pregnant, I expected one of two things: I'd either see a healthy, thriving baby, or that I'd be offered condolences; that they were sorry to be the bearers of bad news, but there's just no heartbeat to be found; that my baby had passed. I'm not entirely sure which outcome I was expecting, realistically, since I'd been spotting intermittently throughout the duration of my pregnancy, and I knew that even though I wasn't particularly losing sleep over it, that miscarriage would be a distinct possibility. Because at the same time, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this pregnancy was real. I felt it. I experienced all those familiar symptoms I had the first time around - the excessive fatigue and hunger, the mood swings, and those little uterine twinges that reminded me that a tiny human was coming into being within my body.

While lying on the table, though, with that cold goop on my abdomen and the ultrasound wand moving slowly across my lower belly, something in the back of my mind - or my heart - raised a red flag. There was my baby - albeit smaller than I expected it to be - but with a beating heart that just didn't seem quite up to par. The ultrasound technician didn't say anything, but when she timed the heartbeat, I knew something was wrong. She eventually stepped out, to go get the doctor on staff to come in for a consultation; and I waited in that dimly lit room for just long enough to know that their hushed discussion out in the hallway was probably focused more on how they were going to tell me than it was on what they were going to have to say.

I can only recount little blips of what the doctor told me - I think most of what he said washed away as his voice filled up the room and my ears, and eventually started to sound like white noise. "The baby is far too small for how far along you are - and its heart rate is very slow. You have a first OB appointment scheduled directly after this, I know," he said, "...but I'm going to recommend that you not bother going. We'll schedule another ultrasound a week from now, and if we don't see substantial progress, we'll know for certain that this baby isn't developing properly and we'll take matters from there." "I'm sorry this isn't good news," he continued, and asked if I had any questions. "No? Okay. We'll see you next week." Questions? I had a million of them. I had zero. I had a ringing and a buzzing filling my head and I needed to run away. I was thinking everything and nothing and everything and nothing. I was numb and I was exploding.

That day became a day of mourning. I cried harder than I've cried in a long time. I cried until I had a splitting headache, and I cried until I just couldn't anymore. 

I tossed and turned that night, and somehow woke up the next day feeling less attached. It became a day of holding on, loosening my grip, letting go, and then questioning everything I was feeling. Did I still feel pregnant, from an emotional standpoint? No. I must have let those feelings slip away. But physically, did I? I couldn't tell. Was my baby's heart still beating? I had no idea. Would it still be beating the following week, when I laid back down for another ultrasound? Your guess was as good as mine - though I hastened to believe that it would be.

The days that followed, though, became torturous. I clambered back up that muddy slope, desperately trying to cling on to every shred of hope and every minute possibility that my baby would be okay - that we'd all somehow miscalculated the dates - that the baby wasn't meant to be any bigger yet or that its heart wasn't quite ripe enough to be beating any faster. I calculated dates, I obsessed, I grasped at straws - and I implored the universe to speed up time and yet somehow slow it all down to a dead stop. I didn't know how to make it through an entire week not knowing what was happening - but never in my life had I so desperately wished for a day to come as I had simultaneously wished I could stop time so as to keep it from ever ever ever arriving.

My fear was fighting so strongly against my desire and I so deeply longed for and loathed Thursday, September 25, 2014. Waiting for that day to come was a torture form that I was anxious to be rid of; because I felt that if this book was going to close, I wanted it closed now. No more limbo. Please.

And when the day came, and I laid down on the table for that follow-up ultrasound, and saw my tiny, lifeless baby on that screen, it was like something in me finally felt free to exhale. Like the torture I'd been feeling all week prior wasn't so much associated with the impending loss as it was with the utter uncertainty that existed surrounding the whole thing. I had grieved, I had celebrated, I had prayed, I had begged, and I had hoped - and then finally, at long last, I was able to breathe. A little shallower, albeit, and through tears, but it surprised me that I ended up feeling more relief than anything else. At last I knew.

___________________

So I lost my second child. At nine weeks gestation, that little baby let go. I'll never know why, and I'll never understand, but I'm doing my utmost to trust that my body was in control.

My body now, though, is suffering those pains of loss. The surgery I just came out of, the aftermath, the medication, the sleepless nights, and the residual grief are all my very-real and very-present now. My body aches, it hurts, it groans. And I'm tired of being tired.

I know I have a long way to go with regard to figuring all this out for myself - I hope I actually manage to do it someday - but in the meantime, I'm walking along with this heavy heart of mine, doing my utmost to rise up and out of this great sadness I'm carrying over the loss of my little babe.

Motherhood is electric.

Never have I felt so alive as I have since becoming a parent.

What is it about motherhood that makes us feel equal parts deflated, sleep-deprived and haggard and yet somehow compels us to rise up every day, put one foot in front of the other, and greet these tiny beings with the same overwhelming feelings of love that we had the moment we met them for the first time? It's amazing, and yet it's no wonder, that a job so exhausting and fulfilling has the ability to stretch us in every which direction, and at the same time manages to leave us feeling as though we're overflowing with a love so strong it nearly knocks us over.

With childbirth, it's like the pain and struggle is proportionate to the subsequent joy, love and elation. With parenting, though, it's as though the pain and the joy battle to the death and each one simultaneously overrides the other until you're sure you can't handle another ounce of either and yet every fiber of your being cries out for more.

To me, being someone's mother seems akin to living without skin on. Like there's no protective layer - and everything feels electric and buzzing. Every feeling somehow bombards my senses and hits me square in the chest - but to the power of ten. Or a thousand, maybe.

Before I became a mother, there were days, weeks and entire months of my life that passed by in which I couldn't be bothered to feel much of anything at all; and yet somehow where I once waded through my days, I'm now scrounging to make it through excruciating minutes and hours - or I'm overtaken by such an intense level of joy I hardly know how I existed through all that time leading up to the moment in which I became a mother.

I'm not insinuating that if you don't have children you haven't lived, or that if you do, your life is somehow more fulfilling - I'm only saying that for me, my life - my me - began after giving birth. Although my identity does not remotely revolve around my daughter, nor does it revolve around motherhood, motherhood itself opened me up and shook awake the parts of me that were asleep for years, passed out and splayed on the floor. There exists meaning where none was before; I find purpose where before I had none; and I've somehow become a deeper, stronger more empowered version of myself.

The demands that motherhood places on us are staggering. Even on the best days, it's hard not to look at the bigger picture and wonder how we're going to make it through every trial, every struggle, every lesson and every period of hardship; especially when we find ourselves on the cusp of a[nother] emotional or mental breakdown.

But the magical, mysterious element to parenthood is how quickly and seamlessly our worries can be erased. It's cliche, I know. I just can't seem to spin the idea in any other way than to say that a kiss from my girl, or hearing her laugh, or feeling her blow a drooly, giggly raspberry into the crook of my neck is enough to erase every terrified and overwhelmed feeling I've ever felt. Without question, without reservation, without hesitation - her love for me swallows me whole and holds me tightly in the palm of her tiny little hand.

I am bowled over, I am scooped up and I am cradled by feelings equally paralyzing as they are comforting, compelling and captivating. And with great certainty, I know I am blessed beyond measure.

Today sucks and I am complaining.

As I write this, there's a little storm cloud hovering above my head; I'm sitting on a chair in my dining room gorging on chocolate peanut butter ice cream and effectively nursing a throbbing wound in a self-serving pity party. There's no question whatsoever as to whether I'm being dramatic, here - I am - but I'm on Day Four (going on Day Five) of single-parenting while Daryl's demanding work schedule requires him to spend nearly all waking hours away from home and the only time we're spending together are those quiet hours where we're fast asleep with drool running down our cheeks. Either that or we're conversing for fifteen seconds over which one of us should be on Margot duty since she's just woken up and is calling out for someone to hold her, and I make a point of taking every chance I get to lie in bed while someone else takes care of her.

But I digress. The amount of whining and crying and screaming I've weathered from one tiny human who stands, like, two feet tall has been far more than I can handle today. She was being a royal turd at home all morning, so I decided we needed to get out of the house so that she could be a royal turd somewhere else for a little while. I don't know whether she's working on a new tooth or going through a developmental leap or whether she's tired or gassy or what her deal is - and might I take this opportunity to implore the good Lord as to why he didn't equip babies and toddlers with some sort of adequate signage? - but at any rate, we were fresh out of Chill Pills in this house, so we went out.

And it was worth our while! I have to confess something, actually. It's something I feel weird saying, because this is entirely out of character for me, but I'm saying it anyhow: I went shopping. I bought clothes. Now for those of you who know me well, I absolutely loathe shopping. I can't stand it. My eyes glaze over when I stare at racks upon racks of clothing and over my dead body am I up for trying any of it on. Which is why Daryl, my husband, and Ashley, my middle little sister, are my saving graces and my personal shoppers - once every year or so, one or both of them has the opportunity to drag me through a few stores, grab stuff off the rack, and go, "Here. Try this on." And I obey, I fall in love with a few basics (I mean, serious basics. My wardrobe consists of jeans, t-shirts, tank tops and hoodies. I don't do "nice" well.), and we move on. Then I wear those pieces until they're full of rips and holes, and we start again.

So today I mysteriously for some reason took myself shopping at Target. We had just been there yesterday, as it happens (uh... I go there a lot), and I had walked past some really great stuff and I remembered how much I like Target's clothing. I usually buy all my clothes at H&M or American Eagle or Joe Fresh (if I'm lucky to be back in Canada!), so Target is never really on my radar. But today, because I was so at my limit and all my patience had dripped out my ears a few days ago, I went, and I tried on, and I bought. Only three things, I should say, so for me that's going crazy but probably not for you, but I felt better! Imagine that! I understood for the first time that feeling that people get when they need to shop out their frustrations.

Today just sucks, though. I swear I'm going to work on my attitude as soon as I'm finished writing this post, but I'm just so tired. Yesterday was a remarkably hot day considering how relatively mild this summer has been, and for some reason I thought Margot's nap time would be the perfect time to mow all the grass on our property. It took an hour, and by the end I was drenched in sweat, and I got a blister on the back of each of my heels and one on my hand, and today all my muscles hurt. And I'm tired and there's still laundry to do and dishes to wash and junk to put away and vacuuming to do and I think I've already swept the floors in this house 14 times today but I'm still stepping on crumbs and dirt and why isn't sock & slipper season here yet and I know that this is a run-on sentence and that it's just gratuitous complaining but it's my blog and I can complain about stupid stuff if I want to, right?

But why do toddlers have to be so hard? I mean, really - WHY do they have to be SO HARD? I should try keeping a tally of the number of times in a day I repeat myself saying, "Margot, don't touch that." "Margot, what did I tell you? Don't touch." "Miss Margot James. I have asked you nicely. You know that's a no-no. Do not touch that!" Then inevitably, "MARGOT. DON'T. TOUCH." And my voice comes out of my mouth sounding like Zuul's (please tell me you've seen Ghostbusters and you know what I'm talking about here).

Parenting involves so much push and pull and there are days where every limb is being stretched in a different direction and today just happens to be one of those days where the demands of motherhood and marriage and keeping a home from accidentally imploding became so great that I sent Daryl a text so long that it probably took him an hour and a half to read in full, in which I said something at least once about wanting to kill everyone I know. (I did say I was feeling dramatic today, didn't I?) I think I need a hot bath and a bottle of wine with a bendy straw.

Image source: Google Images