body parts

Today, he has been kicking up a storm, and while he's not yet giving me the hard, "uffda" kicks that Daniel did in his later months, I can see the surface of my tummy move. And if I put my fingers on my skin in the right places, I can feel something like a little elbow, or heel. It's almost as if I could grab it, catch it, give him a squeeze. He's 22 weeks along now, as of tomorrow. It's nice to feel him there. We've been calling him by the name we're pretty sure we're going to give him, so it's feeling like his name now, and already it makes him seem like more of a little person. I am excited for him.

giving thanks

I have so much to be thankful for this year that it seems almost too obvious to write down. But I will. And it's gonna be sappy!

I'm thankful for my health: That my cancer was caught before it spread or endangered our baby, that we had a skillful surgeon who was able to remove it, and that it is (hopefully) gone.

I'm thankful for our friends and family, and Steve's coworkers, who stood by us and supported us in so many ways through the surgery and my recovery.

I'm thankful for our unborn baby, who surprised us all by being conceived in the first place, and who has managed to persevere through some heavy-duty medical procedures and continue to thrive.

I'm thankful for my husband, who is an unbelievably amazing, supportive partner.

I'm thankful for Daniel, who every day causes my heart to swell with whole new kinds of love.

I'm thankful for our home, which is humble and modest, yet reminds me every day that we truly do have all we need in this life.

macon on my mind

I found myself both envious and appalled yesterday as I watched Oprah and her FedEx elves on TV. They were shooting from Macon, Georgia, and Oprah was doing her annual Favorite Things episode, which I've never seen before. It was ... unbelievable. Oprah, whose wealth is officially beyond my comprehension, sent every member of the audience home with a Scrabble game, Josh Grobin Christmas CD, loungewear, KitchenAid Artisan mixer, panini maker, $250 Target gift card, and more ... and to top it all off ... a $3,800 refrigerator with a flat-panel TV/DVD player/computer on the front door. People in the audience were falling all over themselves when they saw that one! The refrigerators will be delivered to each audience member's home and installed, the old ones taken away to be recycled or given to someone in need. Aside from that little nod to people in need, the whole show was such a paeon to consumerism that I felt a little ill. (OK, she did have a gift basket of environmentally friendly "green" cleaning products, saying, "I probably love to clean so much because I don't have to!") Yet and still, I would have been pretty darn thrilled to go home with that KitchenAid mixer! Not that I have room for one in the kitchen, and not that I'm ready to say goodbye to my beloved handheld mixer quite yet, but it's something I find myself salivating over in stores around the holidays. Such mixed emotions over the power of money!

first sick of the season

(Warning: Contains vomit scene and, possibly, too much information.)

Saturday was one of those nice, leisurely days where we bundled up the boy and went off meandering around town — Garrison Keillor's bookstore for Christmas presents, Nina's for a quick coffee, a used bookstore on St. Clair that's devoted to gardening and plants, an eco-gardening store where Steve stopped in to look at hydroponic growing systems, in case I want to get him something along those lines for Christmas. He's already turned a corner of our basement into a little growing lab, starting up plants and tree-lets with seeds he collects when we're out on walks. That night, we grilled burgers for dinner, then put Daniel to bed and popped in a DVD.

Somewhere between dinner and DVD, I started to get that warning feeling in my tummy, and by the time the movie was over, I was barfing in the toilet. (Well, the first time, I didn't actually make it to the toilet, so Steve ended up having to clean out the tub — poor, sweet saint of a guy. "I had to do this for my mom once," he told me later.) At once point during the night, as I heaved over the toilet seat, holding back my hair, I thought to myself, "I never had morning sickness. Is this what it would have been like? Is this karma, making up for it?" More likely, I assumed, it was something I ate.

Or maybe not. This morning, I found out that a friend of mine whom I saw last week had the exact same kind of weekend. Sick on Saturday night, slept all day Sunday, still pretty wiped out today. Was it a virus? None of our children or spouses got it, and I pray they don't.

wind

Yesterday, I heard Daniel stir from his nap, then cry a little, so I went in and lay down next to him on the bed. The wind was blowing hard outside, and it was making the windowpanes creak and rattle. Whenever there was a loud rattle, Daniel lifted his head as if to look to see what was happening. I whispered to him, "It's just the wind outside, blowing against the house. It won't come inside. You can go back to sleep."

Daniel lay back down, and for a while, all was quiet. Then there was another blast against the windowpane. Daniel didn't move, but I heard his little clear voice say, "Wind." And then he was quiet again, and pretty soon he was breathing deeply and evenly, so I knew he'd fallen back to sleep.

surprise, surprise!

Forget mother's intuition ... we're having another BOY! And he is as healthy and normal-looking as can be. I could not be more thrilled, and Steve is totally excited! Despite my "feeling" that I was having a girl, I really didn't have a preference and would have been happy either way. Now Daniel will have a little brother to run around with, and they'll be so close in age (19 months apart) that I think they'll love having each other as company. I hope so, anyway. Here he is ... I can't help thinking he looks a lot like Daniel did in his big ultrasound (which, incidentally, was my very first post on this blog!).


The ultrasound technician was a cheerful, sunny woman who we could tell truly loves her work, and she kept telling us what an amazing story we will have to tell our son, and how she was thinking, just as we were, that this baby could have saved my life. I do feel a bit breathless and awestruck when I think about it, barely able to believe how well this pregnancy has gone, how amazing it is that this boy has survived so much.

This is such an exciting day! I feel our future coming into sharper focus as I imagine our pair of boys playing together, fighting and rough-housing together, running down the hall to watch Saturday morning cartoons, climbing up on rocks when we go on vacation. "They are going to love Ireland," Steve said as we were driving home this morning, and I totally see that. I imagine myself with my mom voice, saying, "Boys!" A lot. Me, who knew not a thing about boys before I had one of my own. It's going to be wild. I just can't stop smiling.

lucky

Steve's company was recently purchased by a company in Florida, which means we will be on another health insurance plan beginning in January. And it sucks. We took a look at the details this weekend. Whereas our current plan gives us each a deductible of $500 (for a total of $1,500), next year's deductible will be $3,000. Whereas our current plan will pay for any expenses we incur over $2,000 (more on that later), the new plan caps us at $6,000. So, knowing we're going to be having a baby in 2008 (not to mention a number of CAT scans for me), we're going to have to come up with an extra $4,000 to set aside for medical expenses.

It sucks. It really does, and Steve and I are looking at each other wondering where we're going to find the money and what we'll have to cut out. Home projects. Travel, certainly. We won't be able to take as many trips as we usually do, especially with the new baby — not that we took very many this year, but I don't see, for example, a long jaunt down the California coast in the cards. Other stuff we might not think twice about ... I'm on Craig's List these days, looking for a good double stroller because I don't want to think about shelling out $500-plus for a brand-new one.

But as the medical bills for my cancer surgery come in, and the checks go out, I am just breathing a sigh of relief that we have insurance at all. The total cost for just my five nights in my hospital room, I discovered today, was more than $49,000. Yikes. And that's not for the surgery itself, the anesthesia, the MRI, etc., which amounted to thousands more, maybe tens of thousands. Yet because we've easily hit our $2,000 cap, we won't be getting that hospital bill. I don't know how people without health insurance would survive something like what I went through. Maybe many wouldn't.

So in the end, I feel like we're lucky (or blessed, or however we want to see it). Lucky that Steve has a job that provides health insurance. (I don't know why having a job has to be a prerequisite for what I believe is a basic human right, but that's a whole new rant.) Lucky that we can afford to pay up to the $2,000 cap. Lucky that we will probably be able to eke out the $6,000 cap next year, though God only knows how we're going to manage that. Lucky that we have a rainy day fund. Lucky (or smart) that we don't have an unmanageable mortgage that squeezes us or tempts us to take out a home equity loan to afford major expenses. We're not rich, but when we stand back and think about it, we're actually doing pretty well.

art lover?

I'm not sure if Daniel likes drawing with crayons, but I know for sure he likes to chew and suck on them. That's the way he is with just about everything: rocks, leaves, dangling appliance plugs, Kleenex, used candy wrappers. Sometimes at the playground, I pop a pacifier in his mouth because otherwise he tries to eat the sand. He loves to walk around the house with a toothbrush hanging from his mouth ... and hey, I'm not going to discourage that. I try to make a game out of helping him distinguish between "yummy" and "yucky." I know he gets it, but sometimes he puts "yucky" in his mouth anyway, makes the "yucky" face, and laughs.

It's been a while since I've posted anything here. It's not for a lack of anything on my mind — I've had a lot on my mind lately, but I just haven't found the time to pull my thoughts together to write anything. I can't now, either, because Daniel just woke up (early) from his nap.

one more

A picture from Halloween night, just before we set off for trick-or-treating. Next year, there will be two of them sitting there on the front step. How amazing. I remember when it was my sisters and me, clutching our plastic orange pumpkins (which I couldn't get Daniel to hold), posing for pictures in our Halloween costumes. It doesn't seem that long ago. The holidays take on a new perspective now that I am seeing them through new eyes: It's up to us now to establish traditions that our children will remember all their lives.

communion

I don't think I'd been to mass on All Saint's Day in any of my adult life until last night. At least, if I had, I don't remember. I had to lector last night, so I went by myself. Just a smattering of people were there, all sitting in the front of the church. I'm always kind of intrigued by the gatherings I see at holy day masses, and a little in awe — the various assortment of people who, for whatever reason, come to church on a weeknight in spite of their busy schedules. It's different than the Sunday crowd; I imagine these are people who really want to be there, who find meaning in this particular holy day and want to spend their time in worship, or to be around others who are worshipping with them. I heard a baby crying in the back. I heard a couple of people talking about having to pick up their kids from practice afterward. Maybe there are a few who were dragged in by guilt, since it is, after all, a holy day of obligation. At any rate, it was a peaceful, beautiful service. Father Joe gave a simple homily, reminding us that the feasts of All Saints and All Souls bind us with those who have gone before us, those who will come after us, and those all around us with whom we walk through this world. I don't know if it was pregnancy hormones or my increased sensitivity to my own mortality or just my general emotional nature, but it really moved me to listen to that homily and feel connected especially with the ragtag collection of people who gave up their Thursday evening to gather with others and celebrate the communion of saints, the communion of humanity.

friday five :: about myself

Liz made up this meme for her blog, and I thought I'd use it as a Friday Five, even though it's technically Thursday night and I am cheating by postdating this post. Heh heh.

1. Name one place you'd like to be right now.
Snuggled up in bed with a good book.

2. Name two things you really ought to know but that you keep forgetting.
1. Turn out the lights when I leave a room! It's a bad habit, and Steve is always reminding me.
2. The Beatles' birthdays. I used to have them all down pat, but now they're slipping. Is it ... George-Feb. 25, Paul-June 18, Ringo-July 7, John-Oct. 9??? (Now I need to go Google to check my answers. Woo-hoo! I rock! Of course, I used to know all the years, too ...)

3. Name three things you would like to change about yourself.
1. My cancer - I wish I'd never had it.
2. My tendency toward anxiety.
3. My inability to decide what I want to do when I grow up.

4. Name four things you would never change about yourself.
1. My independence.
2. My love of learning.
3. My capacity for compassion and empathy.
4. My sense of humor.

5. Name five people who make you smile inside and out.
1. Steve, my husband.
2. Daniel, my monkey-hugging, big-smiling boy.
3. Dumbledore.
4. My friends from high school when we're together.
5. Jo Ann in Mississippi.