This time I can tell that it is hormones.  I have been so grumpy and defensive and loner the last couple of days.  I’ve been challenging myself, counting to at least seven before reacting and keeping aware of my mood.  I feel restless and a little put-upon (by myself, mind you).  I feel impatient and frantic at thoughts of what needs to be done before Peep comes home.

There is lots.

John and I are off to the movies after we drop Sophie at her dad’s house this evening.  Maybe that will help set my spirits to rights.

I seem to have an elevated internal temperature today.  We’ve had the air conditioner on, colder than usual, and my armpits are saturated.  I cannot get comfortable.  And also, I’m cranky.  Enough so, in fact, that I’d like to kick the small dogs barking next door.

I’ve been working on a quilt that I’d started for Sophie last year.  And it’s taking forever because there is so much appliqué work to be done.  Generally, I love quilting and sewing and crafting.  But less so when I am hot and uncomfortable and cranky.

I want to update, but there isn’t really much going on or much to say.

Peep has been active on nearly the same schedule and to the same degree (as memory serves) as her sister had been.  Lazy and sleepy most of the time, with some good powerful movement at respectable hours.  None of this starting up at ten p.m. and keeping me up all night.  That’s my girl.

I’m doing okay with the depression too.  I’m reading some really good essays on learning and letting go.  I’m getting better sleep (for the most part).  And I’m getting myself out of the house.  I am challenging my every negative thought and suspicion.  And laughing at the smallest amusement for the sake of keeping my mood up.

I’m going to be fine.

Over the last week or so I’ve noticed this periodic, unpredictable, uncomfortable tightening around the Peep.  I assumed that my skin was just unhappy for stretching so far.  Apparently, I am having Braxton-Hicks contractions.  Who knew?  I never had these with Sophie, so I’m a little lost over this new symptom.  I don’t like these fake contractions.  Or the worry they stir in me that I am going to go into pre-term labor.

I’m not panicking, but I am definitely talking to my doctor about it at my next appointment.  Which is, fortunately, on Wednesday.

I can blame it on hormones.  And get away with that explanation because I am industriously growing a person in my body.  But, if I am honest in my self-assessment, I have to accept that what I’ve been feeling over the last few weeks is probably depression.  That heavy-soul feeling, the irritability.  The loneliness and despondency.  It’s too familiar not to see it for what it is.  I feel sad.  Often.

Which is difficult to reconcile with the fully-engaged excitement I feel about Peep and our family.  I am so happy for what I have around and awaiting me.

But I’m also so very unhappy.

Mothering has been impossible.  Sophie and I are completely out of sync and I don’t know how to even us out again.  And it has been hard and unpleasant every day.  Every day.  Not only because of depression, or pregnancy, but because she is aging and changing.  Whenever we enter a new phase of her girlhood, it takes us a few weeks (or months) to get back into a groove and understand one another again.  This time is no different.  Just shittier.  And this is because of the depression and the pregnancy.  Because I am both struggling to hold on and also struggling against the change.  Simply put, I am not liking my daughter.  And I am hating myself.

And I am missing us both.

Add to this the fact that I haven’t been able to socialize as much lately.  On a normal week, I make an effort, for both my own sanity and Sophie’s, to see a friend.  At least once.  Get myself out of Brooklyn, out of my neighborhood, out into the world.  I try to set up lunch dates, or run errands.  Anything to get me out of here and out of my head.  But recently, I became painfully aware that I probably don’t fit into the life of the one person I want to spend time with anymore.  So now what?  Yes, I have other friends and yes, I can broaden my go-to people, but how to overcome the sadness that goes with loss?  Because it feels very much like loss to suddenly not have a place in the life of someone I love so dearly.

And no, I haven’t actually discussed this with the friend in question, because when it is this raw and there is so much happening at once, I doubt my own ability to read a situation correctly.  I assume that I’m not seeing the world through a clear lens and so I avoid getting into discussions I might have no right to.  Which only serves to make me more trapped and more sad.  And more lonely.

For now, I am going back to reading Buddhist teachings and trying to limit my solitary activities (like knitting and quilting).  I am getting out of the house even if I don’t want to.  I am writing this post.  But I am also waiting patiently for Peep to come into the world and for my nursing (which is likely to be on the short side) to end, so that I can seriously consider some form of chemical intervention.

Because I am tired from losing out on so much good life.

I have been completely obsessed with finishing this sweater jacket for Sophie.  The fact that it’s eighty-four degrees outside and she won’t be wearing it for months is irrelevant.  This thing had to be finished.  And now it almost is.  Last night I assembled everything and this morning I need to knit on a collar and sew on some buttons.  Then it’s done.  Then I won’t be up until midnight furiously committed to just finishing off this one last part.  Which, in turn, means I won’t be sick and cranky in the morning.  I hope.

We went up to Boston last weekend for a long overdue visit with friends and their twin boys who were born back in November.   Between the holidays and the morning sickness, this was the first reasonable time for us to get away.  I am here to tell you that the Fung-Wah is a terrible way to travel when pregnant.  Damn them and their cheap, frequent transport.  And their horrible drivers.  Sitting in one place for two hours, the seam of my jeans eventually cutting into my lower abdomen like wire, is not time well spent.  Even if it’s time I was able to dedicate to the knitting.

But the visit was worth doing.  The babies are fabulously sweet and adorable.  And endlessly kissable.  We arrived just as they woke up from naps and were warned about recent stranger anxiety on their parts.  I guess John and I just have that something special and reassuring for babies because these little guys were our instant buddies.  So much drooly smiling.   And then I discovered that tickling Oscar made him laugh.  That’s when I went from enamored to lost.  That’s when I realized that having Peep around isn’t just going to be changing diapers and nursing, but also a spectrum of wonderful firsts that I get to enjoy for the first time in seven years.  Awesome.

And spending time with friends who are now parents is such a different experience from spending time while those same friends are kid-free.  I know that this is something that only I’m sensitive to between the two of us, and it isn’t even true of all our friends, but I feel like not being the only parent makes me a lot more comfortable just being these days.  Maybe being pregnant is part of that too.  The funny thing is that even with two sets of twins recently born into our circle, making the total number of children we all have the same, I am highly aware of the fact that this is pregnancy number two for me.  That I have been a parent for so much longer than everyone else.  And yet, because it’s so new for them, recent parent friends slip into talking to me as though this process is still full of unknowns and surprises.  And I don’t mean the kind that of individual intimate little surprises that go with a pregnancy.

For our trip back John bought me a pair of hideous cotton workout pants.  Granted, they were, and are, hideous only by my own high standards, but I felt like I was wearing pajamas on the bus.  I’m happy that I was, of course, because it made the trip back a bit more bearable, but I didn’t enjoy the sensation of being almost naked.

It’s always so good to come back home.

I’ve been feeling extremely quiet these last few days.  Peep is kicking away inside me, keeping me in the loop and reassured.  She’s even begun kicking when I’m standing, which is new and awesome.  I spend my days either running errands, or knitting away at various projects; thinking about the near future and enjoying the loveliness of this time, right now.

And thus, there has been little to say.  I am, at least for now, done knitting hats and booties.  I made a bunny yesterday for Sophie, which was a great learning experience.  I plan to make a second bunny during our bus ride up to Boston this weekend.  The Peep, you see, she needs a bunny too.  I am also working on a little double breasted sweater coat for Sophie.  This is the largest knitting project I have ever undertaken, but I can’t help feeling like now that I know how to use double pointed needles, I can do anything.  It’s an extreme view, but I’m sticking with it for now.

John has had a lot of work keeping him busy at night.  And so it feels like we haven’t really seen each other or had a conversation in days.  Such and odd and unpleasant thing.  And yet, on rare occasions, that’s just how it is.

Time to make Sophie some dinner.

I am feeling especially pregnant today. And even more so at the moment. I am no longer able to cross my legs; which has been true for some time, but I can’t pretend that it isn’t anymore. And then there’s the whole skin thing. As in, I have only so much of it and the Peep is making it hurt. At this time of day, the evening time of day, I begin to feel tighter and further extended than I can bear. And I’m only half way through this process, which leaves me a little squeamish about the next half.

But I am also loving my pregnancy. I am cherishing every little kick the Peep is willing to dole out; every squirm and every hiccup. She’s really in there. And growing. Preparing herself for the day we finally meet face to face and our life together firmly begins. I have knit her four different hats this week and two sets of booties. Mainly because I am insane. Partly because booties, which I don’t normally go in for, are so frickin’ cute when they’re updated and tiny. I’m not even sure her feet will be this small, but it’s so fun to have these around to eep at every so often. The three of us can sit around gawping at the smallness of all things baby for hours. It’s tragic.