New Beginnings

Whew! What a month it has been! June has sped by in a blur of packing, driving, boxes, lifting, and now unpacking. All of us successfully made the long trip from Connecticut to Texas and we are now reunited in our new house where Abbey has chosen the pantry floor as her favorite spot and Grace has decided the converted one-car garage, which we’ll use as an office/sewing room, is called the “basement”.

I drove with Grace and my dad (who kindly flew up to Connecticut to accompany us down) and Rob drove about two weeks later with Abbey. It was kind of odd to be making the reverse trip that we took 3 years ago when we moved from Dallas to New Haven, but in all practical aspects the drive went well for both of us. Grace did great in the car, just about as well as a busy two-year-old could be hoped to handle a 4-day road trip. You could see her growing more fretful as the afternoon grew long each day, but there was a minimum of actual losing it. Unlike, say, that time we drove with friends to Niagara.

We spent a long two weeks apart as Rob finished up his last days as a resident and I handled some work being done on the house. Grace and I stayed with my parents for about half of the time and then officially started living here and stopped our daily 60-mile treks there and back. The Metroplex-- it is huge! Robert finally arrived, to much fanfare from Grace and me, and now we are happily ensconced amongst boxes in various states of unpacking and IKEA furniture in various states of assembly. Well, maybe “happily” isn’t exactly the right word. We’re working our bums off and living in chaos and eating like crap, but it is all just a necessary step to starting anew and making this place home. I think we’re doing a decent job maintaining our sense of perspective so we are bearing up under the havoc well.

With Child

We’re moving, so that must mean it’s time for me to be pregnant again! I had a positive pregnancy test two days before we left Texas to move up here to Connecticut, the first inkling that Grace was coming into our lives. We are really happy to announce that as we get ready to make the return trip, we are expecting our second child. Assuming all continues to go well, we will be a family of 4 right around Christmas.

I’ve had two OB appointments up here and things look good. The baby is the right size and has the right kind of heartbeat and all that. And there is just one baby in there, which is always a bit of a relief. The ultrasound at the first appointment was so amazing, just like with Grace. This tiny creature shaped sort of like a baby, sort of like a bean, appeared out of the fuzzy gray muddle on the screen. A little cluster of the pixels right in the baby’s chest flickered furiously as his or her tiny heart pumped away. It wasn’t quite as overwhelming as the first ultrasound with Grace, where I immediately burst into tears of awe and wonder at my first glimpse of her; as loathe as I am to admit it, I guess some things don’t have quite the same impact the second time around. Even if the novelty has worn off, it was still enormously wonderful to get a peek into the wee, insular world of our new son or daughter. And now I need to buckle down and find a new OB/GYN in Dallas...

I have not been coping with early pregnancy very well this time around. Nausea, joint pain, a few migraines, plenty of regular headaches, bone-deep exhaustion... I know I felt badly with Grace, but both Robert and I think it is worse this time around. It’s hard to know if it really is a harder pregnancy or if I am just in different life circumstances that have reduced my ability to cope well. I have a busy toddler now and can’t spend as much time catering to my own ailments. And although we were also in the midst of moving and renovating our house and transitioning to a new city at the beginning of my pregnancy with Grace, things feel less fun this around with spending 6 weeks in this temporary apartment. My memories of this place are going to be forever linked with the misery of early pregnancy as I have spent our weeks here gingerly attempting/avoiding eating and lying practically incapacitated on the bed. Fortunately, I am at the tail end of such distress. I think I am already starting to pull out of it and in another two weeks, I should be solidly out of such first trimester woes. Coincidentally, that corresponds with some of our first weeks in Texas. Texas-- move there and you will feel better!