How in the hell is the end of July already?! I think I misplaced the month in the midst of all this heat. Ugh.
For most of my life, ok some of my life, I have owned my uniqueness and lack of ability to feel like I fit in. But being pregnant is really messing with that. I worry that my belly isn't normal. That its not big enough. My natural waist doesn't appear to want to give up the good fight yet, so its holding strong and dividing my belly into two. Which makes me mad that I didn't lose more weight before getting pregnant. But that's a whole other counseling session. So one of the things I always tell people to scrapbook is their pregnant belly. However, I feel too self-conscious about my not-normal baby belly to take any pics - and here I am at 6 months. If I were someone I was helping with scrapbooking, I would coach her to do it anyway, but I am fighting it because I don't feel normal.
Normal. Something I try to avoid for the most part. But being pregnant makes me desire to be normal, and its kinda freaking me out.
Besides the baby belly, I am also worried that I am not enjoying my pregnancy like "normal" people do. Now, I know I have gotten some great feedback from friends that they didn't enjoy being pregnant either, so I know there is a wide variety of "normal", but that doesn't stop me from worrying. Why don't I enjoy the kicking? Why don't I enjoy the growing belly? Why am I not in awe of the growing fetus?
I know the answer, I am still nervous that me reproducing was a bad idea. (Which probably explains the dream about a giant squirrel chasing me while I protected someone else's child. My counselor thinks I was the squirrel.) I am still nervous that parenting will not be something I enjoy, and I will screw up another's life. Messing up my own life, I know how to do that, but as a general rule, I try not to mess up someone else's. Well except for Jim's, but he signed up for that.
I do enjoy that being pregnant gives me all the excuse I need to sleep. So there is that.
But apparently the desire to conform to the physical norms of the world do not cease because one is pregnant. Its just a different set of rules.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
For Ron
Apparently I haven't blogged in a month?! Where did June go! I had hoped to get a blog in about my awesome vacation, but instead I feel compelled to write about my devastatingly bad day yesterday.
Yesterday one of my foster kittens, I had named him Ron Weasley because he was a red & white kitten & very scrawny, died unexpectedly. I have had two sick kittens die previously, and lost a litter of tiny babies, but they were all things I could see coming. Ron's dying struck me blindsided. Anytime I get a litter of kittens, I know they haven't had a cushy life. They usually come from outdoors from undernourished moms, so I am always cautious, concerned and on the look out for red flags. Ron was scrawny and seemed fragile, but he had been given medicine for mites & worms, was eating, drinking, using the litter box, and would come out every time I came into the room to wait for me to pick him up & then start purring. Oh the purring. I would hold him upside down in my arms like a baby, and he would just purr. And he would stay there as long as I had the time to hold him. Or I would set him in my lap, and he would stretch out, never ceasing to purr.
He wasn't interested in playing, but watched his sister run around. Looking back, I could have seen these as flags of something being wrong, but I didn't think they were so abnormal as to indicate sickness. But now, all I can think is WHAT IF, or I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN, even though I know I couldn't have. My husband, who was the last one to see him the morning he died, is also beating himself up that he didn't see anything wrong. And I can logically comfort him that there was nothing to see, nothing to miss, that sometimes kittens with poor starts to life just don't make it. But illogically I just want to scream, NO! NOT HIM! HE WAS MINE! HE WAS FINE THAT MORNING! I keep picturing his little body as I had to find him, and I swear I want to rip my heart out so that it stops hurting. I know its irrational, but I feel crushed that he died alone, that I wasn't there for him. I feel like I failed. I want to go back in time and get him to the vet. I know these first few days are the worst, and that with time, the pain goes from gut-wrenching, instant tear-inducing to a background wistful remembrance.
So I am torn between wishing time would fly so that I could be past this crushing grief & just remember his content purr instead picturing his little lifeless body where I found him when he didn't come out to greet me, and wishing I could turn back time so that I could have a chance to try to save him.
I know I gave him a warm place to live, with all the food he could want and the all the love I had to give. I know he was content to lay in my arms and purr, and he sought out my lap whenever I entered, meowing if i didn't notice him fast enough. I know the hurt with remembering will be raw for a few days. And I know that his little life will leave a permanent little pawprint on my heart.
But I know that I wish it could have been different, and that wish hurts.
Yesterday one of my foster kittens, I had named him Ron Weasley because he was a red & white kitten & very scrawny, died unexpectedly. I have had two sick kittens die previously, and lost a litter of tiny babies, but they were all things I could see coming. Ron's dying struck me blindsided. Anytime I get a litter of kittens, I know they haven't had a cushy life. They usually come from outdoors from undernourished moms, so I am always cautious, concerned and on the look out for red flags. Ron was scrawny and seemed fragile, but he had been given medicine for mites & worms, was eating, drinking, using the litter box, and would come out every time I came into the room to wait for me to pick him up & then start purring. Oh the purring. I would hold him upside down in my arms like a baby, and he would just purr. And he would stay there as long as I had the time to hold him. Or I would set him in my lap, and he would stretch out, never ceasing to purr.
He wasn't interested in playing, but watched his sister run around. Looking back, I could have seen these as flags of something being wrong, but I didn't think they were so abnormal as to indicate sickness. But now, all I can think is WHAT IF, or I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN, even though I know I couldn't have. My husband, who was the last one to see him the morning he died, is also beating himself up that he didn't see anything wrong. And I can logically comfort him that there was nothing to see, nothing to miss, that sometimes kittens with poor starts to life just don't make it. But illogically I just want to scream, NO! NOT HIM! HE WAS MINE! HE WAS FINE THAT MORNING! I keep picturing his little body as I had to find him, and I swear I want to rip my heart out so that it stops hurting. I know its irrational, but I feel crushed that he died alone, that I wasn't there for him. I feel like I failed. I want to go back in time and get him to the vet. I know these first few days are the worst, and that with time, the pain goes from gut-wrenching, instant tear-inducing to a background wistful remembrance.
So I am torn between wishing time would fly so that I could be past this crushing grief & just remember his content purr instead picturing his little lifeless body where I found him when he didn't come out to greet me, and wishing I could turn back time so that I could have a chance to try to save him.
I know I gave him a warm place to live, with all the food he could want and the all the love I had to give. I know he was content to lay in my arms and purr, and he sought out my lap whenever I entered, meowing if i didn't notice him fast enough. I know the hurt with remembering will be raw for a few days. And I know that his little life will leave a permanent little pawprint on my heart.
But I know that I wish it could have been different, and that wish hurts.
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