Murmur

It's 2:14 am. I'm sleepless. CC is not crying. CC is not being held. CC is calmly asleep in his bassinet, like what we have dreamed for for the past month. This is the first time since CC is out in the world that I'm wide awake in the middle of the night, or wide awake any time of the day really, not because I have to care for him, but simply because I'm angry and distressed. For the past month, CC has been my entire life. Feeding him, changing him, soothing him, holding him, putting him down in his lovely bassinet, picking him up again. Sleep has been something that I have to squeeze in whenever I can, and sleep has always come easily when physical exhaustion is constant. But now I can't sleep because I just had a fight with Mr. B, with the loudest scream I could manage to let out. CC has been Mr. B's entire life too, or at least most of it. The first day CC was in the world, Mr. B learned to rock him, sing to him, pat him, swaddle him, change him. I saw his jo...

 I hate this moment. I wanna destroy. Destroy my words. Destroy my mind. Destroy yelling. Destroy silence. Destroy my upbringing. Destroy my trying. Destroy coldness. Destroy laughter covering up everything. Destroy our history. Destroy warmth. Destroy dream. Destroy the dark tunnel in daylight. Destroy the light that's too bright. I feel CC in me. I can't destroy. But my heart is in pieces.

Maybe it'd get better, I thought, next month, we'd get lucky. Maybe it'd get better, I thought, once we get married, legally blessed. Maybe it'd get better, I thought, when we move into our new house, a new life. Maybe it'd get better, I thought, soon, when IUI works. Maybe it'd get better, I thought, as long as whatever works, to make me carry a baby just like so many other women. Maybe it'd get better, I thought, when I see that CC is still living. Maybe it'd get better, I thought, if I can just find a perfect OB at a perfect hospital to make sure that CC and I would be perfectly fine. Now CC is 9 weeks old, in my belly, growing. I really thought I'd be happy by now. I thought I'd be smiling this moment, dancing the next. But I worry things would go wrong with CC. I worry something would happen during delivery. Perhaps when CC finally comes, I'd then worry that he'd get sick. I'd worry when he grows bigger and wonders off from me. I...

The meditation made my mind as clear as the autumn sky. I feel good. Things are fine. CC is growing inside me, 7.5 weeks old like a little grape (according to NHS). I was happy as I walked down the temple on top of the Japanese garden. But even then I knew that this feeling wouldn't last long. My anxiety would return. My mind would soon be busy weighing the pros and cons of each OB (should I call the doctor who promises to deliver? But I heard from online that she's hard to book and might cancel on you if you are shopping around. I'd better be more determined. Maybe I should call the other clinic with the best NICU? But maybe it's too far, and I'd be stuck in traffic in an emergency. No, maybe I should just stick to the current doctor. But what if they are not responsive with all the different providers, and, even worse, what if the baby needs a better NICU that they don't have?). Or maybe it would be busy listing out all the possibilities of my past and future ...

 "I had a calm and uneventful week again," I told the therapist, "almost happy." Worked out. Went to an unguided meditation group at a Japanese garden. Bought what was likely the last batch of sweet peaches this season from a farmer's market. Converted a pair of golden earrings from Goodwill to clip-ons with brand new tools. Ate my favorite noodle soup twice wearing the clip-on earrings. This had been my brand new life recently. Calm. Normal. Almost happy. As a testament that I'm not some crazy woman obsessed with baby making anymore, I was sincerely surprised to hear the alarm to remind me to take my medications. I even managed to miss a blood draw appointment (luckily they squeezed me back in). Day 0. When I woke up from a long, deep doze after taking valium, I started to wipe and scrutinize the TP. Is there no spotting? No watery discharge? I laid back down - no feeling in stomach? Day 1. My Google search history shows that there were two searches of ...

Mr. B broke down. After some beer, he became a crying baby. Wow, this must be how I look like half of the days, I thought. For him though, this had been the first time in many months. It all started yesterday when I got upset when he kept on texting his friends and wouldn't pay his full attention to listen to me when I just walked into home. After a few hours of deliberately ignoring each other, a yelling fight broke out. This was an old fight. I was frustrated that him was always on his phone. He was frustrated that I constantly interrupted him to seek attention. We bickered about it so many times that I thought we were both too tired to bicker anymore and had reached a balance. Then the outbreak. Was the phone incident really the cause? Perhaps it all started the day before yesterday, when I told Mr. B that my new psychiatrist, during the initial intake, asked me about what he had done during the treatment. Did he go to appointments with you? Did he help with the injections? I ev...