going under
Jack's touch and his voice helped me through each contraction.
* While I was in the tub last night I felt a strange peace, like everything was calm but I knew the next wave was coming and it would be another big one. I remember that feeling during the later stages of my labour when I was trying not to push through contractions after my water broke. I would "heee, heeee, hoooooo" as much as possible until my breath caught just a tiny bit and then my body would just PUUUUUSH. Jack would try to pull me back and make me release my breath, "let it out Janice, just breathe" but I couldn't help it. The power of those contractions were stronger than I was.
* I feel like I'm in that stage of labour again, just trying to slow my breathing between contractions but knowing that another one is coming and it'll pull me under again. I'm so scared that this is going to push me into official craziness, into a dark place where no one will be able to reach me.
* when we went to bed last night, after midnight, I told Jack "no thinking, no talking, no tears, let's just go to bed." He joked "Hey, I'm a guy. Since when do I do any of that?"
* I just needed to go to sleep without crying, just once.
* Jack fell asleep fairly quickly, and I tried to read some pages of an old novel but I still felt like I was in that space of waiting, just waiting for the next one. Then I remembered Dory.
* When I first found out I was pregnant, I was so shocked and overwhelmed with all the questions I had. What about my work? my schooling? the birth? everything? Dina had just been through this a few months before and knew how I felt so in one email to me, she reminded me of Dory from "Finding Nemo" when she reminded a panicked Marlin to "just keep swimming, just keep swimming...."
That became our private mantra for months to come, through our pregnancies, Lucy's health crisis, and now this. So as I was soaking in the tub last night, waiting for that wave to come, something dropped into the tub from Julia's bag of bath toys. It was her rubber Dory toy. I tossed it to the foot of the tub where it bobbed around for a minute and then Jack put it back in the bag, but in that second, I remembered Dory.
* I don't feel strong enough to keep swimming, and I know it will be Jack's arms, and his voice that will help anchor me. He assures me that my ticket to crazyland will be a return ticket, and not one way.
* My mom reminded me last night that even when there is madness around me and lots of people and details and such, I have a bedroom with a door on it, and I'm free to go there anytime no questions asked. Even my big tough BIL said yesterday that if he was going through something like this, he'd just want to lock himself in a room and make everyone go away.
* I can't sleep. I think I slept about an hour tonight and I woke up thinking, "Oh good, I slept" and then I saw the clock and it wasn't much later than when I first fell asleep. I'm so tired, and hungry, and sore. But my mind won't stop thinking. I have four more days to get through, four days of the waves getting bigger and stronger each time. I'm so scared that they'll pull me under.
* Today is a day of details. My mom is taking care of most of them this morning and then will come and see me when they're done. Jack may go to the city with his sister and print off Abby's pictures at Walmart and then go buy a suit. He really wants to get a suit for her funeral, and he hasn't had one of his own since Kim was a baby.
* Tuesday will be a day of preparing the house for company, thankfully I won't need to do anything. Then late Tuesday afternoon my cousin will arrive with Abby and we'll have her here at home until she is buried.
* on my "before baby to do list" I had wanted to buy two helium balloons announcing "it's a girl" and tie them to our front step to announce to everyone that she had arrived. Labour came up suddenly and I never got around to buying those balloons. Jack wants to get them today along with two black ones, and tie them all to the step. Yes, we are celebrating her birth but we are mourning her death at the same time, and we want people to know.
* Abby, my Angel, we miss you so much.