Saturday, March 29, 2008

Eating and Sleeping

There's a very old "Garf.ield" comic strip in which, I think, Jon reproaches his cat because all he does is eat and sleep. The cat makes some obnoxious remark I can't remember (something about how that's what life is all about), and in the last frame, one of them says "I'm hungry," and the other is asleep.

I am both those today. Woke up, had a bagel, talked to B, dozed, gave in and took a full-fledged nap on the couch for a couple hours, woke up, had some chips and iced tea, had some popcorn, and that brings me to now.

Busy day. Whatever. It's helping me get through, and making up for not eating yesterday because I was too upset.

It occurs to me that eating and sleeping is also the sum total of what newborns do -- along with the diaper activity, of course. Of course that occurs to me. Saturdays are hard, because that's when I entered the next week of my pg. I would be 33w today. 13 weeks ago, we were trying to figure out what the hell we were going to do. How much of a chance our living son would have. If infection didn't set in. If I didn't go into labor. If he didn't just die inside me like his brother.

God, that sucked. I look back, and it seems like a whole other universe. The time I was pregnant, it seemed so long to get to 20 weeks. Every day was an eternity. I remember thinking early on that I'd be 20 weeks at New Year's. After the new year, I'd start polling my friends for recommendations on baby stuff. Maybe we'd go look at cribs. Start moving stuff out of C's office into mine to make room for the babies. Maybe I'd have stopped puking.

Well, I stopped puking. I had actually just reconciled myself with the idea that I'd probably be sick the entire pregnancy, that I'd be sick until May. Guess I was right, on one of those, at least. Goddammit.

Looking back, the last three months have flown. My friend S is where I was (or beyond where I was) when it all went to hell. My sister is past her first trimester.

Life goes on.

I eat. I sleep.

7 comments:

luna said...

those days leading up to my due date were so hard. all the should have beens just tormented me. I can't imagine how hard it must be to watch your sister grow now. ''keep resting and healing. snacking is ok too. ~luna

Sue said...

Luna, thanks. Luckily, my sister lives 2000 miles away. That sounds terrible, but I know you know what I mean. When I talked to her last week, or the week before, she said she was showing already. Going on 13 weeks. Don't know when I'm going to be able to see her again. Better not to think about it right now. But she understands.

Amy said...

My due date just past. I have to say that rest actually made it a little bit more bearable.

I am glad (you know what I mean) to see that your sister lives as far away as she does. It would be torture to see her belly and watch her grow. Although, she is in my thoughts and I would never wish this hell upon anyone, so I wish for her a happy ending! I'm just sorry that you didn't get the happy ending and that you have to endure all of this now.

Eat, sleep, do what you must to get through the fire. I'm here if you ever would like to talk, just send me an email and I will send you contact info or you can send me yours!

Big hugs and wishing you peace. Amy

Sue said...

Amy, thanks for your note. Glad William's due date was bearable -- how did you get through it? I'm already starting to dread the EDD.

Thanks for your good wishes for my sister, too. I know what you mean, and I, too, wish her all good things with her twins. She's worked so hard for this pregnancy, endured so much herself. I think we both wish I could enjoy it, that we both could have our happy endings.

Carrie said...

Keep eating, keep sleeping. It is all you are able for right now.
You will be healing so slowly and without realising it. Someday you'll feel just slightly better for a while, you may not even notice, then another day a longer period of better. It is slow and it is very gradual. It is not linear, after feeling better you can have days of feeling so much worse, but it does get better, more bearable.
It will never go away completely and it will never be ok but it will be part of you and there will be other parts of you too. That might seem impossible right now.
When we lost our longest pregnancy, our girl (16 weeks, no where near as traumatically as you lost the boys) I fell apart. Truly fell apart and it scared me so much. I really thought we were passed the danger, I thought we had a chance. It was torture going through the weeks to her due date. And then it was slightly better. Not easy but more bearable.You have it so hard. The sister thing would have finished me. I am so sorry.

Katie said...

I am so sorry. I wish there were more than words.

Amy said...

STE,
Honestly in regards to William's due date, I'm not sure how I made it thru! A lot of tears and SLEEP! If I sleep I don't think! The pills I take to help me sleep don't allow for dreams so, I guess that's a good thing!

I do think of you and your DH everyday. I do hope that you find some peace someday.