Return to writing

It's been a long time. A lot has happened, so much so that it's almost painful to read back on the old entries that I wrote. I'm not sure why. Maybe reading back on them will remind me of attributes of thankfulness and hopefulness that I'm trying so hard to grasp onto these days.

I finished most of my diploma in costume to find myself pregnant at the very end. The day after my last class, my little boy broke his femur in a freak accident and our world was turned upside down. As these things usually happen - there was no warning before our lives changed, there was no way to be thankful for the way it was before. The femur cast, known as a spica, was put on both of his legs up to his waist to stabilize his hips, and completely immobilized him. It's difficult to think and speak about, let alone write about. The cast was on for six weeks, and after that rehabilitation had to occur. My son has amazed me, as I don't think I could have ever imagined how resilient a 3 year old could be in such difficult circumstances. He learned to walk again, in tiny shaky little steps, and now we have to the joy of getting to see him run and jump around the house. It's hard still though, he has started preschool and though he enjoys it, is still trying to keep up with their motor skills.

The pregnancy has been equal parts good and bad. A second pregnancy is such a different experience. No one treats you like you're precious, or fragile. Life has to go on, and there are little people to take care of. The celebration feels lacking, too. No one seems excited. Maybe that's just me.

Perhaps it's that I'm remembering my pregnancy with Ender wrongly. I know that I felt curiosity about him, but did I feel love? The love I feel for him now is so accumulated that I could just be projecting it backwards onto my pregnancy. Maybe this feeling of ambivalence is partly that I haven't yet had a chance to fall in love with this little person. My little girl.

Yet, it's more than that, I know. Antenatal depression, they call it. It sounds awfully ominous for something that just makes me not leave the house, or finish books, or cook food. Something that just makes me more sensitive than usual to what people don't say. I feel guilty about it. Embarrassed. Like I should know better now that I'm as old as I am, and have so much to be thankful for. But the longer I've been pregnant the harder it has been to ignore the creeping darkness of my thoughts, and it was time to acknowledge that I needed help. It has been a hard year, and there's nothing wrong with admitting that I'm having a hard time keeping up to what all of the changes that have been thrust upon us mean for my plans and my future. I hope that I can figure out everything, to start over and make everything better for myself and my family. In the meanwhile, I think I'll try and write here more often again. It seems to help.