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36 weeks!
I hope I’m not boring you with my weekly pregnancy updates, but I have to share this good news: I am 36 weeks pregnant today and I still haven’t turned into a water-retaining blimp. I have a good friend who is also due the first week of March, and when I talk to her on…
falling away
Last week was a sad week. A friend (the sister of very close friends of ours) died after struggling with depression and bi-polar disease for almost 20 years. Her son is ten years old, and every time I think of him, I get teary. Every time I think of her family and their pain, I…
my anniversary
It’s true—I’ve been a blogger now for one whole year! In a recent post I mentioned that I never really planned on being a blogger—blogging seemed like one more thing I’d have to add to my forever-expanding to-do list. But then I got lonely—writing can be so lonely and isolating—and I yearned for a sense…
quick update
I just got home from seeing my doctor, and everything is still looking good with the pregnancy. My blood pressure is great. No extreme swelling yet. No protein my urine. Yee-haw! The baby actually feels enormous inside me, and every night after dinner she has taken to shifting or rolling, which makes my abdomen look…
33 weeks and counting
This week, I passed the gestational point with this pregnancy—32 weeks and 4 days—at which Stella was born. Throughout the day on Monday, I thought: this is the point that day when they started the Pitocin; this is the point when Stella became distressed; this is when they said I’d need a C-section; this is…
good news
First, I want to thank all of you for your support and kind words (about this pregnancy and more generally about what I post here). It’s funny. I never really wanted to be a blogger, but I thought it would be “good for me,” so almost a year ago, I started this blog. Because of…
pregnancy update
I’m 31.5 weeks pregnant now and seem to be healthy, though I am beginning to swell a little. This could be normal pregnancy swelling, of course, but it could also be the beginning of preeclampsia. I’ve begun weighing myself every morning, and D. checks my ankles and wrists every night for signs of serious edema.…
anti-mommy: more than a phase
Stella has always preferred D. to me. I’m not being modest or anything. She was born a daddy’s girl. Even in those early, horrible months when she refused to nurse, and I’d be pumping and try to get her to calm down, I couldn’t. I would coo and rock and sing until finally D. showed…
an apology and a clarification
A few weeks ago, I wrote about dialogue and posted excerpts from two writers whom I think do dialogue exceptionally well: Yusef Komunyakaa and Cheryl Strayed. But then I went on to say that Cheryl Strayed was an unlikable narrator, and Cheryl Strayed actually read the post. I hurt Cheryl’s feelings, and that wasn’t my…
christmas according to Stella
Last night, after reading to Stella and turning out her light, I was lying next to her in bed, giving her a back rub when she said, very seriously, “Mom, Christmas isn’t about love.” “Sure it is,” I said, looking at her narrow back, wondering where she was going with this train of thought. “It’s…
revision and Némirovsky
I’m sure some of you have already read Irène Némirovsky’s Suite Française. For those of you who have not, you must go out and get it. Némirovsky was a Russian Jew who had lived in Paris for twenty years by the time the Nazis invaded France. She was a successful novelist and mother to two…