normal

I'm supposed to go back to work tomorrow. The doctor says I'm physically back to normal and can resume regular activities. I am filled with panic--it feels like the first day at a completely new job, not one where photographs of my loved ones are hung up and fading and there's a stack of notebooks filled with my scrawly handwriting. I worry that I will continue to space out randomly throughout the day, but maybe I'm just spacing out because I've been watching redundant decorating shows (pergolas are the hottest in backyard landscape design right now).
 
More than anything, I'm terrified I will oversleep because I haven't been awake earlier than 10 a.m. (good day) and have stayed in bed until well past 3 p.m. (not such a great day). At every turn in my life, I have become more convinced that I was created to be nocturnal.

Thank you all for your kind words and thoughts and beautiful wishes. I can't tell you how much it has meant to Jon and I to get a comment or text or card or flowers or hug.

Before all this happened I had a post in mind that seems ridiculous now, but here's the gist:

Back in 2009, when Jon and I got engaged, we didn't have any money because the condo had sucked away every last penny we had saved, so we kept telling people we weren't going to get married till 2013. We didn't have to wait that long, but when we did set a date for 2011, Jon wanted to ask some of his best friends from back home to stand up in our wedding in person. He went back to visit and it took some doing to coordinate a dinner where all of them would be present. He was still figuring out the best way to bring up the topic during the dinner when his friend Mike says to the table, "Guess what, guys; I proposed to S! Will you guys all stand up for me at our wedding?" Jon had to follow up with something along the lines of, "Hey, me too."

So when we got pregnant and waited the requisite 12 weeks to tell anyone, Jon was hemming and hawing over what to say when announcing the news to his friends when he got a text from Mike: "Guess what? S is pregnant!" She is due 5 days before when our baby was scheduled to be born.

Today we found out they're having a boy. I think they might feel a little weird talking to us about it, as just a few weeks ago S and I were comparing aches, pains, maternity clothes and ultrasound stuff, and now suddenly I'm out of the game. But we are very happy for them. Seeing other people's kids makes us more hopeful than sad.

What I'm wrestling with is that my physician basically said it wasn't hormones, it wasn't stress, there's nothing wrong with my body to have caused this, and that the pathologist said our baby had an acute infection. Whether that occurred before (to cause) the water breaking or in the three days after, they cannot determine. She essentially said for us to just contact them again if and when I get pregnant again. I like to have answers, a plan, a strategy for the possible next time. If I needed to stand on my head and do Kool-Aid shots, or withstand a lot more pain in order to prevent this from happening ever again, I would do it, without question. But not doing anything at all? That simply does not compute. Jon and pretty much everyone else regards this as fabulous news, but I can't help but worry.

I guess I just have to take it one day at a time, starting with tomorrow, when I really hope I heed the alarm.