Home again

I am safely home, before the snow started. I am vacillating between feeling pretty much normal and bursting into tears. There are babies and baby stuff everywhere. Going to Target for a few needed items is like walking the gauntlet, and the grocery store is an exercise in masochism. When I'm at home I'm okay, especially when I'm not alone.

Talked to several of my friends who have been through this, and that helps. And while I am tired and my throat is still raw from being intubated for surgery, I otherwise physically feel almost normal. That helps too. I am dreading going back to work on Tuesday. My colleagues are kind people, and they will many of them want to tell me they are sorry. That is when I usually lose my sh*t. Not to mention the fact that the ultrasound picture from the previous Friday is taped to my computer monitor. Not something I look forward to seeing first thing.

The Minotaur is really struggling too, I think. He didn't go to work on Friday at all, and he didn't want to let me go when I got home. He doesn't always talk a lot about how he feels, but being a father has been one of the most pivotal experiences of his life, and there's no question about that. He is ready, like I am, to do it again. He is afraid, like I am, that it will not be as easy to achieve this time, and current events are certainly not helping in that respect. I am 37 years old. Not ancient by any stretch of the imagination, but hardly a spring chicken.

The last few days have been a really powerful reminder of why I've stayed with the company I work for this past 13 years. The calls have been regular, not to me, but to the girl I traveled with. I think out of fear of upsetting me. The travel agent was given instructions to get us home early, despite the $400 additional cost for doing so. I feel the support so strongly from where I am, even without a word spoken to me directly. I am so grateful to be home and not stuck in New York.

My Kraken was very glad to see me. And I have to say, despite the fact that it totally SUCKED to have to go through all of this without my husband, I am immeasurably grateful that my daughter did not have to observe any of it. She won't even have to know it happened until she is much older. She is so powerfully affected by my emotions, it's hard to imagine how the cocktail of my fear and my obvious physical distress would have impacted her. She cries when I cry, even if she doesn't know why I am crying. A girl after my own heart.

Two more days of family time to get my head back together. And it's snowing. It's so beautiful.