Quickish update

So a few things are going on. I am ignoring email so sorry to anyone trying to reach me that way… I’m kind of in triage mode.

On labour
My sister is still in pre-term labour, which is – amazing, for her baby. Her OB has admitted that she has no idea why the drugs are working, but they are. However, it has been a very hour-by-hour struggle… for almost 4 weeks. Contractions will start. They change her dose around. Then they stop. Then she’ll go for a while without any. Then they’ll come back regularly. She’s effaced, dilated, and has been stuck on her back all this time. The baby seems to be doing okay and is growing which is – lovely. Around 3 lbs now, which is fantastic. (30 weeks) It’s all kind of miraculous.

The baby’s heart sometimes decelerates. No one really knows why. I don’t particularly like that. It comes back ok, with oxygen sometimes. Sigh. Shades of Emily, except, you know, people doing stuff.

My sister has had headaches, shakes, is develping a blood clot (she may have to go on heparin) and has only slept intermittently… for 3.5 weeks. She has bounced between the ante-natal ward and L&D. Plus contractions. Plus being stuck in bed. If she stands up, contractions. If she gets emotional… you get the idea. It is so hard. She is amazing! She is freaked out and exhausted. She will have to grieve the loss of a normal pregnancy. Her husband is doing okay and is with her most of the time. My parents just got back but her in-laws are down. I may go down any minute really, but am trying to hold my precious vacation time for when the baby is coming home. They are going to be exhausted. I can’t imagine starting parenthood after such a draining experience.

On stress & illness
For me, a minor spectator at this point, it has been well, hard. The first week I was sort of flipped out- not just for them, but also lots of (predictably) nightmares about Emily. Anger, about Emily. And lack of sleep, which made me tired. I messed something up at work… and discovered you do not actually have to quit your job if you mess up, you can like, FIX it. You can even do it firmly and seriously but without drama, like this: Oh yes, that was a day late, but it is done now. You do not have to fall on your sword or wring your hands and wail. That was kind of an accomplishment, but it came at some emotional price.

Then I got a cold, which turned into a sinus infection but before I could get in for that, I stopped being able to walk up stairs, which was confusing. So I went into the clinic last weekend and got sent for an x-ray and I had pneumonia. This is a pattern. My sister said on the phone “oh! That’s become you were a preemie!” I sort-of laughed. It is true that I have had pneumonia about 15 times in my life (twice this year!) and been hospitalized for it. And I was a preemie. But it’s also usually my body’s sign that I’m stressed out. NO SHIT.

On work and new adventures on old turf
This week I almost caught up at work. Next week I am on my first press junket (if I don’t go to Texas) ever, ruining my journalistic integrity in… fashion. Since I didn’t really have any to speak of, I’m ok on the junket; my PseudoBoss basically told me I was going. Someone has to represent, I hadn’t done a turn, and also there is a luxury room for a night involved. I realize that doesn’t sound like work and you know, there is definitely that element… but it is work. It’s sort of like a conference. It’s got its perks that are extraordinary (keep reading) but you have to network and write and be your best sparkling self and not embarass your company.

I think if I were not still a bit sick, tired, riding the wave of “what’s important is life without brain damage!” and generally a little numb, I actually would be totally freaked out about spending two days with basically North America’s fashion editorial crew (junior staff edition). For someone who spent 9th grade doing her best to dress like a Jedi (not kidding, but in my defense jumpsuits were very 80s), this is something of a… thing. Think Devil Wears Prada or Running In Heels (is that it?) or Ugly Betty. Those things are not actually entirely inaccurate. And I would be the Betty.

It is in the Laurentians, which is the spiritual home of the warrior caste of my system and my own birthplace, so it is pretty much sacred ground. If I were going to pick ground upon which to meet fashion people, I’d probably have chosen one town over, so we’re good. Actually that’s pretty much how I beat my record of turning down press trips (I have turned down, among other things, an Alaskan cruise, Disney, and New Zealand so far). I heard this “I’d really like YOU to go to this… Laurentians… clothes… horses.*” It was only when I was asked for my dress size (12) and the PR person GASPED IN HORROR that I came out of my little fog. They are doing their best to accomodate my horrendous shape for the fittings. And yes. I have to take off some clothes and join into the fun – with a bunch of size 0-4 fashion people.

Yes, I will disclose in my copy. I may have accepted the trip but I still have standards.

Noah
Is still the best thing since sliced bread. His imagination is wild and a little dangerous, as in “I can take pretty much any innocuous item in the house and turn it into a way to kill myself, and then insist that I am a knight/dinosaur/spaceship so it is OKAY.” His joy is contagious. My mother-in-law was down and we took him for a streetcar ride across Toronto (501 from Neville to Long Branch in case anyone is wondering) and he was enthusiastic the entire time about everything we saw.

He also babbles and asks questions incessantly. I had a Yard Sale for the Cure this morning (I know, I know, but I’d committed to doing it… we did have less stuff due to having had to spend the whole weekend before literally in bed) and all morning it was “why is that man looking at the lawn mower?” “Why did that man not buy the lawn mower?” etc.

So there we are. I have let a number of things drop that I will need to pick up after the press junket from hell.

Hope everyone is well.

* P.S. On horses
Part of the fun is wearing the clothes on horses. I’m not kidding. I have never really learned to ride, but I have ridden. Probably I’ve told this story before but here goes: As I said, I’ve never had riding lessons of any sort, although I’ve sat on a horse while it walked sedately around in the name of tourism a few times.

Then when I was around 20 and my life was about to fall apart and we had revealed our abuse to our family, my parents took us on an all-inclusive trip to Vermont. And part of the inclusion was trail rides. So I called up to book one and they asked “English or Western saddle” and I said English ’cause like… Canadian. Anyways, the stables interpreted this as being experienced. After the ride I commented to the guide that that was fun for my 5th time on horseback and he got a funny look and said “that was what?” and it turned out they’d given me some fractious horse and stuck me on a more advance trail.

Why this has stuck with me, besides being probably one of three times in my life that I ever showed a vaguely natural talent for doing something sporty (the other two being archery and canoeing, both of which I ended up instructing), is that it was one of those moments in my life that I can look back on and remember that moment – the guy being vaguely impressed, unless he was bullshitting me to pay for lessons – and remember that my inner life and my outer life aligned. I remember standing thinking simultaneously “That’s weird because I don’t know how to ride at all” and “but of COURSE I can ride because I am the Warrior Queen, silly.”

Not that I would count on this ability for squat, rationally. Irrationally I sort of do vaguely think that if I really had to I could race a horse across the dessert to warn the King of Archenland that… oh wait, that Shasta in the Horse and His Boy. :)