.of sea salt and chocolate chips.

There is a smell of chocolate cookies wafting through our apartment right now.  On Sunday, after our successful trip to the Rose Bowl Flea Market (more on that later), my friend Melissa came over and we made cookie dough from the New York Times famous chocolate chip cookie recipe.  You are supposed to let it sit for at least 48 hours before you make the cookies, which requires an enormous amount of will power. But the real kicker with this recipe is the sprinkle of sea salt that goes on just before baking.

I am making the cookies for Leif's co-workers.  They have all been so amazing to him/us during the last seven weeks.  After George died they took up a collection and bought us a week of healthy gourmet meals delivered to our house.  More importantly they also made a donation to the American Heart Association in George's name.  I can't think of a more thoughtful thing to do for someone after something like this happens.  I know cookies can't capture our gratitude but, hey, they are really good cookies.

.the birds don't know it is time for bed.

It is so late. Again.  I am awake and this time so is Leif. 

Apparently the birds are also having trouble sleeping because they are outside making quite a bit of noise. Usually it is pretty quiet around here except for the sound of the birds chattering away outside our windows (and the more than occasional helicopter but that is par for the course living in Los Angeles).  But for some reason these birds chirping at the wrong time is weirding me out. 

I feel a familiar sense of anxiety like when I haven't been able to sleep before a big event/test/trip and the early morning hours have crept up on me, as signified by the beginning chorus of birds, and I realize that I am quickly running out of time to get some rest.  But tomorrow is not a day for me to be anxious about, except maybe for the fact that Leif is going back to work.  He is my safety and my comfort and I am sad that he has to go back to work.

Two days ago a bouquet of flowers that we got after George died began to wilt and the petals began to fall off.  That struck me as so sad because it meant that time was not frozen and eventually I would have to learn to accept this new reality. 


But life goes on.  That is one thing that I am learning more about everyday. 


"You must do the things you think you cannot do."
Eleanor Roosevelt

.like a robot.

Today Leif and I made it a point to get out of the house. 

It was another beautiful sunny day in Los Angeles.  Not a cloud in the sky.

We ate fajitas for lunch that a friend brought over for us last night.

Two good friends came and treated us to Thai food and gelato.  It is good to have company.

We watched Top Chef Masters.  I had a second dinner of my sister's chicken pot pie.

We went to bed and we agreed that today was a pretty good day.

Leif fell asleep right away because he was so tired.

I stayed up and cried and wanted to hold my baby again.

The nights are always the hardest.

.the rainmaker.

It is raining outside right now.  It started this morning around 3:30.  I know because I was awake, lying in bed with a heating pad on my neck, an abdominal binder around my belly and two freezer bags of frozen vegetables on my breasts.  A surprisingly comfortable combination, actually, once you get over the initial shock of the coldness against the skin. 

I love the sound of the rain.  We so seldom hear it in Los Angeles.  It reminds me of George now. Nearly every appointment that we had at the OB’s office before we found out about his heart condition was on a rainy day.  Living in LA that is unusual.  When we went into the hospital the first time it was raining and it continued to do so off and on for many days while we were there.  I think it even rained on the day that we went for one of the final ultrasounds where we found out for sure that the medication hadn’t helped his hydrops. 

It was supposed to rain last Wednesday, on the day he was born.  I can’t say for sure if it did or not but I like to think that it did.  Leif says he was a little rainmaker, which for us is a happy thought.  George means farmer and I like to think that he would have been pretty good at that job had he had the chance, given that he could call down water from the clouds.   

He was definitely his father’s child.

.sometimes life has a way of knocking the wind out of you.

I can’t say for sure why I am writing all of this “out loud,” so to speak.  I’ve never been one to keep a diary. I don’t like this feeling of being exposed, especially to people who know me in real life.  Which is why it is even stranger to me that I feel the need to publish all of this on a blog only read by my friends and family.  But I do, have this compulsion to want to record it forever, since I fear that one day I will try to remember how I felt and that I won’t be able to.  But no matter what I write here there will always be a part of this whole experience that belongs only to me and to Leif.

I wrote this last week sometime.  Since then things have changed quite a bit.  Having the opportunity to hold him while he was alive was simultaneously the most precious few minutes of my life and infinitely more heartbreaking than I ever could have thought possible.

Life is different now and I am adjusting to this new reality.

.....................................................

I’ve been struggling for weeks to find something/someone/some place that I can relate to during this time in my life. No matter what I do or who I’m with there is this black fog that encloses around me.  I hear the voices of my friends and my family but I feel like I can’t really see them these days.  They are just paper dolls and the only real person in my life is my husband.

I’m 28 weeks pregnant with a little boy named George, whom I am going to lose to a heart problem within the next couple weeks.  We found out five weeks ago that his heart was beating too fast which was causing heart failure and fluid accumulation in his body.  I was in the hospital for two weeks getting cardiac medications to slow his heart rate down but his is a stubborn heart and has decided to beat at its own pace. 

We could have opted to have him delivered and sent to the NICU.  But all the specialists were in agreement; he is so sick that he wouldn’t survive and on the slim chance he did he would have severe neurological problems for the rest of his life. So we chose to wait out the two weeks the cardiologist said that he had left before the fluid in his heart caused it to stop beating.

Now here we are.  Waiting.  An endeavor that is so much more difficult than I ever imagined it would be. He is still growing and doing all those things that healthy babies do but his poor little heart is getting weaker everyday. I still feel him moving around inside of me.  But I know soon I won’t be able to feel him anymore at all.

I simultaneously fear the day that he dies and anticipate it, just wanting all of this to be over.  A scary proposition, giving birth to a baby that you know isn’t alive.  I have a difficult time saying it, even to myself.  Giving birth to a dead baby.  It catches my breath every time I even think about it.

What will it be like after he’s been introduced to the world and we are left alone to hold and say goodbye to our son?  Because of all the swelling from the fluid accumulation I wonder what he will look like.  Will I be able to see his father in his face?  Will I be able to see myself in him?  What is it going to be like to hold him and look into his still face? 

What weighs the most heavy upon my heart is the fear of what comes after I’ve delivered my son and we come back home to our empty apartment.  I fear that all I will have are memories of a child that I was never given the chance to know.  Imagined snuggles, kisses, puddle-jumping, bug-hunting, lunch box packing… I fear that I will live in the shadow of a life that was supposed to be rather than the life that is.  Most of all, I am afraid of the amazing relationship that I have with my husband suffering because of my own self-pity and inability to move on.

People say I am so strong…I am brave.  I am weak and scared and humbled.  Yet I know somewhere there is hope.  I see it when I look into my husband’s face.

I wish I believed in miracles.

.monopoly money.

If I had a lot of disposable cash, which I do not (thank you very much USC), I would spend some of it on these adorable crankypants knitted baby pants. 

What else would I spend some of that imaginary cash money on? A pair, or two, of classic oxfords. Luckily (or unluckily, depending on how you look at it) my big feet won't fit into these babies.

This beautiful bag from The Sak has been trying to seduce me into buying it for months now.  I've never actually owned an expensive bag before.  The last handbag I bought was from a thrift store in Oregon for $1 and I've used it for the last year.  Seriously. 

But really, if I had the money I would buy this camera for Leif.  The Canon T2i. I know that we will eventually get it before the baby is born but I would like to get it for him now (well, as soon as it becomes available).  He has been spending a lot of time researching cameras and this is the one that he wants.  I like to see him excited over new toys.

.the final countdown.

I have this sort of pseudo list in my mind of things I want to do before we leave Los Angeles later this year.  They're things that I've always wanted to do or meant to do at some point in time while I've lived here but for whatever reason I've not done yet.  One of the most important items on that list got accomplished Saturday night. I got to go to the Magic Castle.

You need an invitation from one of the members of the Magic Castle to even get into the place so it makes it somewhat exclusive.  When I say exclusive I don't mean in the pretentious chi-chi obnoxious way that many places in LA are known for being.  You don't have be a supermodel or an actor to get in.  You simply have to know someone who knows someone who happens to be a magician.  But you do have to dress formally to be allowed in, which means nice dresses for the ladies and suit and tie for the fellas.

We ended up hanging around there, flitting from magic show to magic show for over six hours.  We saw some pretty mind boggling things.  I haven't had that much fun in a long time.

There is no photography allowed in the Magic Castle so unfortunately we only snagged these two.

 

  

And now for the best part of the entire post.  A magician named Gob.