It's not time to come full circle yet

Sometimes being in the hospital on bed rest is just a little too much like the last time I was in the hospital after Reid died. Nothing to do but rest, still no baby in my arms (although the one in the belly kicking me is far better than none at all.) and still lots of awkward conversations about my obstetrical history (but I am much better at getting through them without breaking down.)

When I met the resident today on the day shift, he looked at me kind of funny and then looked at my chart and asked, "Dr. W delivered your last baby?"
"That's right."
"And you were seeing  Dr.K and the  (...) group?"
"Yes."
"I was there that night, in the operating room."

Well that explains the weird look. He was actually really nice, said how sorry he was and how that night has stuck with him. Turns out his wife had a baby not too long after and he couldn't stop thinking about how everything had changed so quickly for us that night. It's nice to know that other people still think about Reid too, even if it is just in that context. I knew I would have to deal with all this kind of stuff eventually, I just thought that it would be at about 11 weeks from now when were in the process of delivering Thing 3 or maybe even after they arrived and I was a couple floors up from here in the Mother/Baby unit.

Here is where things get all f-ed up again...

So if anyone is  reading this, please drop by my other blog, because I am stuck in the hospital and about to lose my mind.

What I did when I wasn't blogging - Part 2

When Merry posted about a lack of courgette in her garden a few weeks ago, I had to laugh. Okay first I had to wonder why in Canada where one of our official languages is French, we don’t use the term courgette.  Then I had to laugh, because while my small garden didn’t produce a large volume of most vegetables this year, there was definitely a surplus of zucchini.

These were about 18” long and they were far from the biggest ones that grew. I had so much zucchini and was bringing zucchini based foods to so many places that one of my friends started calling me the “Zucchini Queenie”. (And yes that is one of the other things I started doing not too long before I stopped blogging, I started socializing on a limited basis again.) I also gave zucchini away to my neighbor and some mommy friends too.

I tried out a recipe for faux crab cakes that was actually quite good. D and D.G. both liked it and ate it more than once. I also made at least 4 different batches of zucchini brownies and a few monster batches of these zucchini-carrot-multi-grain muffins that I like to snack on. Then there was the zucchini cranberry loaf that turned out supper yummy so I made 2 more for the freezer. And finally a chocolate zucchini bundt cake (that used only whole wheat flour)  that seemed to be on at least a dozen foodie blogs so I gave it a try. 

And just in case you think I only baked with vegetables, there was also this. I found it one night at 10 pm and I swear if I had had any cream cheese in my fridge, I would have made them right then. I managed to wait a couple days before baking these, but holy crap were they delicious. The whole pan was gone in 3 days. I would love to make them again, but I have to wait until we are getting company so I don’t eat them all.

What I did when I wasn't blogging - Part 1

So what did I do when I took my self-imposed break from blogging in August/September?  Well here's what we did first. It started with, "What are we buying each other for our 10th wedding anniversary?" The one thing we agreed on was a new mattress/bed. And that lead to new nightstands so we would have more storage, including a drawer where I could keep Reid's things when they needed to be moved out of "the baby room" to make room for Thing 3. Then we realized that we had now been in the this house for over 5 years, a record for us, and it was time for us to paint before we brought in the new furniture. And since we were switching from a double to a queen, we needed new sheets and so we should get a new comforter too. We went from new bed to pretty much whole new room.

Here is our bed before:

 

And while it's still not completely finished (we need some art over the bed and the drawer for Reid's things is still empty), here's what it looks like now:

 

And the other side of the room because we changed it too.

We love the way it turned out, it's very soothing and peaceful and the new bed is comfy too. Now if only I could find the courage to move Reid's things out of the crib and into our room. If only I could be sure that we will need that crib for a real live baby.

Post-October 15th Issues

I felt like such a bad DBM last weekend. I planned a date for D.G. and myself for Saturday night, not realizing that it was October 15th. I had to light my candles around 6 pm and then after 10 pm when we got home. It was a delayed anniversary date that I had already rescheduled once (due to my massive cold that I still haven't completely gotten rid of) so I couldn't cancel again. We had a really nice evening which made me feel even more like a bad DBM. Of course we cancelled out the nice evening by spending most of Sunday arguing/fighting. Apparently I am too controlling right now. Not really shocking that a woman who couldn't/can't control any of the "big" things in life, like whether her children live or die, is slightly obsessed with controlling the little things in life. (So much for being proud that we are still together and sometimes happy after 10 years of marriage and 18 months of grief.) Hormones ensured that there was lots of crying on my part too so I felt like complete crap all around. Why can't anything be easy for more than 12 hours in a row?

October 15 2011

For you, my little boy. I'd give nearly anything to have to have you here with us. No matter where or what you are now, I  love you and I always will.

Maybe even a little bit Thankful

I tried going back to posts from last year to see what we did for Thanksgiving, but apparently my lack of memories is because I pretended Thanksgiving wasn't happening, not because I can't remember what we did. Therefore I will view today as major progress. I cooked a proper Thanksgiving meal today and we did a fall/Thanksgiving craft with D. Well I organized the craft and D.G. did most of the work, he has blisters to prove it, but I did the vast majority of the cooking and cleaning and have the dishpan hands to prove it.

It was so nice to cook a holiday meal for just our family, no extra stress, no giant amounts of food and no making things just because "it's tradition". We had turkey (mostly because I want to make soup next week) and gravy, pyrogies(because they are the best non-chocolate food in the world), roasted parsnips(fresh from our garden), homemade biscuits and fresh cranberry relish(never going back to jellied cranberry sauce). I even made an apple crisp for dessert. Can you tell I'm just a little bit proud of this meal? And it was the best turkey I have ever made. (Damn, I should have taken pictures.)

I guess time has helped me be on better terms with Thanksgiving. I know I would be less inclined to celebrate anything if I wasn't pregnant, but being pregnant has not fixed many of my other issues, so there has to be something else that has changed too. Or maybe this cold has led to some kind of strange brain infection and I'll be a giant mess of bitterness and tears tomorrow.

Happy Belated Anniversary to me

Well me and D.G. of course. Thursday was our 10th wedding anniversary. Does that make us an old married couple now? We weren't planning anything big and it's a good thing because I came down with a cold last weekend and I can't shake it so we just hung out and watched TV together for a couple hours after a yummy supper with D. (It all came out of the freezer, but it was still yummy.). He did get me some lovely flowers and we will go out without D once I feel human again, but the celebration will stay low key.  We already have our anniversary present, which is one of the things I have been using as an excuse to avoid the blogging world in the last month. (will post more on that later.)

If I needed proof that nobody bothers to remember anything themselves and instead depends on FB to remind them of birthdays and anniversaries, this was it. The only "happy anniversary"s we got came from my parents and his mom (nope, still not speaking to her) and my friend E whose anniversary happens to be the day before ours. Nothing from our siblings, wedding attendants or friends who attended the wedding because we didn't post anything on FB. This of course left me feeling losery on top of the sick, but only mildly. Hey, I already wrote most of them off anyways. (G, you are completely excused what with the explosion and all that day. No really there was a workplace explosion on the day of my anniversary.)

18 months

Thanks to coincidence and the fact that no one can count on it being warm enough to be outside for a whole afternoon by mid-October, I will always have the option to mark the 1/2 year anniversaries of Reid's birth/death in a big way. The local Walk to Remember is first Saturday of October so it will always be within 4 days maximum of October 3rd. I must admit that it was much nicer to look forward to the walk than the fact that my little boy should be 18 months old today. Despite the fact that is was a cool, gray day, it was still a nice afternoon and a wonderful way to remember so many babies.

 

 

I have mentally made today a sort of deadline for myself. I keep telling myself that after today it will be alright for me to start sorting out and cleaning up all of Reid's things in "the baby room". It probably will be at least a couple more days until I get started due to the fact that I have a nasty cold, but I am going to start soon. I have a new place for all the really precious things in our newly re-decorated bedroom. (You knew I had to be doing something in the last month, I certainly haven't been blogging.)

I wish I could have a picture of what Reid would have looked like as a 1 1/2 year old. Why can't we get pictures in the mail from that place where everything turned out okay and we are living happy lives with our children? It's been long enough that I know I can't wish him back into existence here, but I still want updates from that other place.