The weather has been wonderfully cool, and yet the physical challenges of this phase of the pregnancy are all too present. As Isaac has his good and bad days, so too do I.
Last week we had this day that began well and ended badly. My friend Martha and I decided to go to the beach (Lake Erie, half a mile away). There we figured we would sit in the shade and sip cool drinks while the children played. In fact, this was wonderfully true to the vision. Cool breezes and lovely views, an enormous sand box to play in. But for one problem: Isaac. Martha and I sat in the shade, while Isaac ran headlong towards the filthy water (sometime I’ll tell you about the time Ben got uvulitis– and infection of the little dangly thing in the back of his throat– by swimming in it after a rain), and I had to chase him. Then once I got settled again, he headed out towards a rocky breakwater, and I had to chase him. I went and sat down again, sipped a bit of Perrier, until he began to pick up rocks and throw them perilously close to innocent bystanders. I had to chase him. After that he threw sand… etc. etc. etc. Finally I decided that I simply had to leave the bucolic splendor and think of something else to do. Lunch at a cafe seemed a good choice, seeing as Sassy Lassy (babe in utero) was starving. But there too, the chasing! The rushing outside to play while I was in the midst of ordering! After that, thinking that if he climbed and ran he would get his yah-yahs out, we went to the playground. Again, my vision was that I would sit on a park bench and he would climb and exhaust himself. But in reality, I was always on the hoof, rushing across the playground to break up fisticuffs or prevent opportunities for falls from great height.
He’s not a bad child, mind you. He’s a gem among boys and almost a pure delight. But he’s A BOY in the most physically active, busy, curious, daredevil sense. After a full day of this plus dinner out with guests I was really in a state. I started having this strange trembling feeling, that seemed like the baby was perhaps having a seizure. This scared me half to death, and then became clear that it WASN’T the baby at all, but my uterus itself having something of a seizure. Then it spread until I was having muscle spasms all over the place. I felt like a race horse, twitching after the Kentucky Derby. I reviewed and remedied the obvious– dehydration? Not enough salt? Too much of something? An imbalance of electrolytes? Nope– what it boiled down to was just profound exhaustion. After I lay down for a few hours, it went away. The next day I did have a babysitter for four hours and so canceled everything and spent the whole time in bed. Wonderfully, after she left, Isaac and I had a sandwich, and then he fell asleep and I could sleep some more. Bliss! That evening I felt just fine. Isaac was a lamb and went to bed early.
HOWEVER, to pay me back for my easy day, Isaac woke up at 4:30 a.m. on Thursday. (All that sleep re-energized him.) I dosed off and on until Ben had to leave at 6:30 a.m., and then the marathon was on. All day, through trips to and fro the store, out to lunch and seeking our fortune at intriguing venues, and through all manner of quiet, sleep-inducing activities, Isaac stayed bitterly, persistently AWAKE. Refusing all naps or efforts to quiet time. As the afternoon wore on, my whole body began to hurt. My uterus clenched itself into a very hard lopsided butternut squash with defined edges. Finally I did the unthinkable and fell asleep with Isaac on the couch watching Clifford by himself. He could have choked; he could have fallen down the stairs; he could have played with matches. But instead he just sat there for an hour and watched Clifford quietly and I slept and renewed myself. I felt much better. At 7 p.m., Ben got home, and we had a babysitter coming for a date night. True to form Isaac tanked, had a screaming fit (he really must have been exhausted by then) and went directly to sleep five minutes after we left.
I have two conflicting imperatives at the moment, perhaps a free sample of what it’s like to manage the needs of two children. One: keep the baby safe and get through the pregnancy with both of us healthy and well; Two: take good care of Isaac and enjoy him, during this final summer of “just us.” We’ve had a much longer run than most, halcyon days of time together for almost four years! But much as I KNOW that having a new baby will be a good thing for Isaac in a lot of ways (and of course good for Ben and me and our family overall, or we wouldn’t have done it) I also have this melancholy sort of swan song feeling about this summer. I just want to BE with Isaac as much as possible. I know what’s up ahead– he doesn’t. Hence the idea of getting full-time babysitting in here and really resting much more has a sad and hollow taint to it. (Not to mention the staggering expense… the whole economic point of my not working for money is that I provide the childcare myself!!) Ben points out that there will be such as thing as alone time for me and Isaac — even after the baby comes. He mentions that Isaac and I could go out for the afternoon and he could stay home with the baby, for instance, and that this whole guilt-sorrow swan song deal is really irrational and pointless. He adds that he himself, at age 40, sees his mother alone from time to time.
Yes, but…
But my days are fraught with frustration. I am constantly thwarted. I can’t so much as sweep the floor or carry a load of laundry upstairs without feeling those unpleasant signals that I need to sit or lie down. The biggest thwarting of all is that I can’t– simply can’t– chase Isaac 12 hours a day and still be healthy and safe. I can’t provide him with good care, really, as the emergency sleeping with him unattended attests. I can’t go around feeling constantly stressed, weak, and bone tired. It doesn’t help that every twinge frightens both Ben and me. Of course, normal pregnancy is full of twinges, yanks and tugs all the time. As experienced as I am at this, I must admit that I have TOTAL amnesia about my pregnancy with Isaac. I think I was so terrified the whole time that I just went out to sea, self-medicating with all 20 engrossing Patrick O’Brian books.
And all this is in higher relief than ever this particular week, week 22, which is the particular week five years ago that we lost Jacob. So we live with the constant awareness that this CAN happen, unlikely as it is at this point in a pregnancy that (unlike that one) has been pretty much seamless. But even when we pass this week and get it out of our system emotionally (which I believe we will) we still have to admit that the pregnancy is not going to actually get any easier from here on out. Baby Sassy is getting bigger all the time and putting more and more strain on the one-half of my uterus in which it lives. It still needs to BE in there safely at least another three months, and the situation is only going to get more precarious.
I also know that it’s been incredibly cool weather– add heat to this mix, as surely will happen at some point this summer, and the reality immediately becomes a lot more dire. I learned during that brief heat wave around Memorial Day that heat makes the most basic activities much more pregnancy-threatening. We have central air, but how can I keep Isaac in the house with me all day? Impossible. Which means, venturing out. Which means, contractions.
No… no. The reality is here. Three mornings of babysitting (we just increased my coverage a few weeks ago to get to that level) are not enough! Shocking expense or no, emotional quandaries or no quandaries, I need someone else to chase Isaac MOST of the time. I don’t want to be PUT on bedrest forcibly… Or worse.
Mantra: it’s just a few months, a few critical months…
To end on a much lighter note, Isaac made this observation the other day:
“If you make another baby after Sassy, then you’ll have the whole set!’