Lighting candles

December 8, 7pm

remembering our miscarriages, and yours.

I've lit more than a dozen candles in total (because there are 10 little candles for May&H)


(On youtube some videos from last year. Someone said 'remembering the children who lost their lives too soon' As if there are children who lost their life just in time?)

Small Virus into a Super Typhoon

Last week I was horizontal with some virus. Silly little bug made me dislike food, even the lunch I'd already had. So from Thursday to Monday I ate and drank very very little.
My aunt came in to look after Suzy who happened to be asleep at that time.
She berated me for even contemplating my upcoming trip. How could I leave Suzy after fighting for her for 6 years? While I'm still breastfeeding? While we just moved and surely I would endanger my relationship with DP as well?!
And all of that on a very tiny empty stomach.

When I told DP that evening he was as flabbergasted as I was. (thank goodness)

As soon as I was up and reading the news again it started to dawn on me the news wasn't good. That biggest typhoon of recorded history? you guessed it, my trip is supposed to go to the Philippines. 36 hours till departure, 60 till arrival, right now it is hard to judge whether my hotel will still be standing or if the roads will be passable.
Right now the airline (Cathay) is saying it is delaying today's flight till tomorrow. Will see what they say tomorrow though.
Going and not going both seem ridiculous options now...

PS, I seem to publish two posts together every time now, and then some people miss the earlier one

Storm

On Monday I was supposed to work half a day.
And the weather was supposed to be very stormy.

I didn't feel good about it and decided to work from home.
The windows were rattling and at times it felt like the house was shaking. The water in the canal was swept sideways, sirens were riding past and all the sounds made me uneasy.
Then the painter who was working on another part of the house heard it on the radio: a tree on our canal had fallen, and killed a woman. If I would be so kind to stay inside.
I followed his advice and slowly a knot tied in my stomach.
This is what I saw the next morning, one bridge away from our new place:

 Can you believe how calm the water is again?
Then I turned to go to work, and was shocked to see another tree, at another bridge:

The knot in my stomach kept telling me: it could have been me. (No, it couldn't, I stayed inside) I'm sort of glad I don't know which tree was the fatal one.

Moved & Minor Miracles

We moved.
We survived.
On October 15th it was exactly 8.5 years (oh and one month) that we were together. We used to do something special on the 15th in the earlier years. This month we made up for all the not-so-special 15th-s and moved into our own house. It was stressful at times, the weeks before and after. But we knew each other well enough to not get into useless fights.
DP still confuses left and right, is still in major To-Do-List mode but it is all good. If not all finished.
In the weekend we did after-move chores, only to get ready for the next big thing.

MIL turned 75 and wanted to celebrate with the entire family (of 11) in a hotel in the east of the country for a weekend. And a minor miracle happened: DP's oldest, 14 year old did join. It was the first time he would see me since a year ago, so the first time he would see Suzy. It was remarkably normal. With everyone arriving in various cars we met there, DP's youngest son doing the introduction: 'this is my little sister'.
(He dropped the half-sister thing a while back) 
The oldest has always been fond of babies, and still was.

Not a word was uttered on what did and did not happen in the past. It is past anyway.
I'm much relieved, DP was happy to feel complete and his parents were the richest people on earth having all of us around.

Banana

Babypost coming up.

When Suzy was born she weighed 3.9 kilos. At first she lost some weight, as is quite normal for breastfed babies. Then she struggled for 3 weeks to gain back that weight, but then she started growing. And hasn't stopped since. Babybacon thighs even, yum.  At 5.5 months she began to notice that we put  'things' in our mouths, and wanted to try some.
Spoonfeeding made her vomit, not such a success...
So we have had her try herself almost everything we eat that is solid enough for her to hold in her little chubby hands, so she could get used to food without us forcing it upon her. At first she would contort her face, like she couldn't believe we would eat actual bread. Fruit, even banana, seemed too strong or strange a flavour. But she kept coming back to bread. Chewing it, sucking on it and losing it from her mouth again. yes, we had a book that said this is a normal first stage of learning to eat.  It also said it could take a few days. or weeks. It never said it could be almost two months before she got the hang of swallowing.
But this weekend marks a tiny milestone: Suzy ate some banana...
We let her try herself, and when the banana pieces were small and slippery on the table I put them on the tip of my finger and she could suck them off.
She weighs 8.1 kilo now and I think she will depend on my milk for a bit longer. But it does amaze me that she doubled in weight just feeding from my boobs.

(Don't tell DP, but if all goes well I would like to give Suzy milk till she decides she doesn't need or want it anymore. It does put strain on my body but my BMI is still 20.4, so above 20, so still healthy I think.)

Thrown out

We're moving soon, 12 days to go.
So we are packing boxes.
I'm a hoarder, so every time I move there are more boxes with 'archive' / memories / stuff
And DP is a purger, throwing things out that don't need to move with us. I have been hiding the medicine boxes from the DE-IVF all this time, stuffed in a plastic bag. Of course he started to throw them out. To him they are nothing more than old paper, clutter. He was a little incredulous that I kept that many useless boxes. What had a planned to do with them, he asked.
I couldn't come up with an answer, not in words. As if I need to hold on to something tangible, proof how hard it was. Proof for Suzy that we didn't just hop on a plane and steal/buy an ovum on a whim.
He suggested we take a photo, but I was feeling all grey and unmovable, unconvinced that would make it better.
I was adamant we kept all the tests (again he was surprised there were that many), he just threw out the wrappers and boxes and put them in with the one unused test that is left.
What to do with that one I don't know.
   

Time goes slowly when you're dead

August 6 was my deceased cousin's birthday.
I visited his grave like I do every year, planted a pink geranium. I usually plant a little white rose, but the plant shop didn't sell them at that moment. Pink with purple it was.
I took Suzy with me, as if I needed to introduce her. But I was nervous about driving with her on my own so I asked my mother to join us. While it was reassuring to have company, it was not the same as visiting the grave on my own. I couldn't get into the emotional space to think of my cousin properly, so just did the physical part, a bit of gardening, and didn't dare to 'talk' to my cousin.( Forever 31.
He did meet DP, he did ask me if DP was the guy for me, but cousin didn't live long enough to know about our IF. Wasn't there to think through DE with us.) I'll go back another time, he won't mind.
Also, if he and I don't believe in heaven, he will not have met the vanished twin. Anyway.

Mom took pictures at the grave. Looks odd, the juxtaposition of new baby and the stone marking the end of his life. I have been a bit locked up since the visit. After a month decided I should write cousin a letter, get it out. In Dutch, so won't publish. Somehow it is harder to write in dutch... More practice writing here..
And so much happening in the here and now to keep me from writing.
We're not dead, and time doesn't go slowly at all now.

Luxury Problems

The renovation is almost finished.
We might even get a proper connection to gas and electricity. Who knows, even water, but that request seems in eternal limbo.
The roof started leaking and ruined a newly stuccoed wall. Had it fixed. and found out the water now chooses the other side to leak through. (Only) minor damage to a wooden floor.
Luxury problems.

The Movers come Oct 15th.
The (empty) boxes came today. 120 of them.

I didn't get the promotion at work. Because, well, I had been Away with being pregnant and all.
And my boss implied I shouldn't complain because I have More Important Things to Worry about. So I do the high skilled work while keeping the low payed job.
See, I have a job. And not getting paid for it like the others who do the same work is a luxury problem. The only reason I accepted this job was to keep my sanity. So I refuse to drive myself insane with the unfairness of it. My boss might've been a friendly coworker, he is not a good manager to me.

Suzy. Yes, my dear little human. There is some magic in waking up in the night and feed her, that small body in the big bed, latching on, relaxing, falling asleep. I carry you back to your crib, but only because I need some sleep myself. Trust me, I wish I didn't. My elbow hurts at weird moments, probably from getting old and carrying you. And some hours later we repeat this.
I keep telling myself that if I firmly believe that broken sleep will get me rested as well I should feel rested. It is true you get used to not sleeping so well. But some days I can't think straight with how tired I feel. A rational part of me tries to tell me that breastfeeding takes a lot of energy, that maybe now is the time to rethink how much energy I can afford to spend on milk, and reducing my chance of ovarian cancer and ... I don't even want to look down the list of perimenopausal risks.
Luxury problems, I tell myself. I'll give it my all.

Going away with HB and the scuba friends group. for two weeks, in Nov. I'm crazy, I'll miss DP, the new house and Suzy so much. Luxury problem. I want to still breastfeed, I'll pump and feed the fish.

I don't know why the previous five years were so slow and everything is happening now at once. at breakneck speed too.
Sort of waiting for something to go horribly wrong. Till then, gnawing the bone and sucking the marrow from this year.

Dreamtime

"In Australian Aboriginal mythology, Dreamtime is a sacred era in which ancestral totemic spirit beings created the world."

creating the world, creating new life, a new individual... The first half of this year already feels like a dream. Such a special time, with its own time warp. Even though I take a picture almost every day it still feels like sand flowing through my fingers. I would like to hold on to this time. To wrap myself and Suzy in an eternal baby-now. After longing for this for so long it seems to go by so very very quickly.
Five months now, and I am shocked by the first tentative sensation of two tiny bottom teeth.
Later this week it will be August, which means I will go to work 70%. While more days and hours at work means I can get into it again and not feel like a fraud sitting behind my desk, it is also so much more normal. Like before. Not exactly as if nothing has happened, but almost.
Did I enjoy it as much as humanly possible? Did I do everything to drink it all in? Did I spend enough time with her, and share with family?
I feel a little melancholy, knowing deep down that this is the only time I'll get to do this. The hurt for the twin that didn't make it is unpredictable, but pops up every now and then. I don't want to 'try again' for 'another baby'. I don't want another, I wanted that one (those two)
(and yes, it is hard to allow that sadness and not constantly berate myself to count my blessings and hug Suzy tight. I shouldn't be surprised that the twin wriggles itself into another blogpost. Where else would it be?)
So um, normal seems hard sometimes...

Take care, and cherish your dreams.

Blogger ate my post

Finally I wrote this post about love.
And then blogger ate it. Not even a draft was left. Or maybe it was a firefox crash or a sudden battery-low-shut-down while I was trying to get it to publish...
It was the first time I actually lost a post. Comments I've lost frequently, but this... ah well, I'll try again.
Later.

Back to work.
I found it a bit shocking when the first of July rolled around. First half of this year gone! past! So much happened and I´m not nearly done soaking it all up.
Torn between wanting to document it, and actually living it. So much here and now, and it just keeps going.
Heather (sorry, link removed) writes: "We’re trapped in that weird new baby space/time continuum where you feel like you’ve known the baby your whole life, but every day runs together into one endless feed/sleep/poop loop."

Now I have to break the continuum. I went back to the office. Sat down on my chair, at my own desk that has been waiting for me the whole time.
I was prepared for some emotional turmoil when leaving Suzy at the daycare. Didn't happen. I mostly found it soothing to know she is finally around other babies. Maybe she doesn't miss her twin, but I do.