Are You a Grown-Up?

I'm just wondering because apparently I am a grown-up.  I mean, I know I'm 29 and all. I've obviously had enough life experience--joy, loss, fear, the works--to qualify.  It's just that every time there is a true crisis in my life there is a part of me that is looking around going, "Okay, who is going to make this all better for me?"  Which, let's face it, even during childhood there is only a very tiny window where Mommy or Daddy can fix all the problems.  Roo has long-since started coming to me with questions that blow my mind and little girl troubles that I can't fix.  

So why is it that I still wish that someone would come along and make the last 4 weeks of my pregnancy easier?  Help the medical bills get handled smoothly.  Reassure me that the financial, emotional, and physical strains will pay off shortly.  

I don't know why I am so reminded of this tonight.  The night Matthew died, nearly 7 years ago, it was obvious that he was doing very poorly a few hours before.  No one really wanted to make dire predictions, but there was a part of me that knew things were going to shit.  I called Jerry and made him drive back to the city several hours before the nurses told me to do so.  I remember I was locked away in one of the breastfeeding rooms in the NICU pumping.  My mom called.  I completely broke down on the phone and begged her, begged her like a small child, to make everything better.  It was not pretty. I still don't really understand why I did it, and we have never talked about it between us.  I'm sure it caused her an immeasurable amount of pain that she couldn't fix it.  Matthew died a few hours later and the rest is history. 

Obviously, I am dealing with a much milder version of worry, pain, and anxiety these days.  This is small potatoes compared to what I've been through, but the cumulative effect of everything we've been through is really getting to me lately.  It's not just grief and anxiety either.  Unfortunately, as anyone who's ever had a loss knows, the world doesn't stop for your grief.  There are still bills to be paid and situations to be dealt with and jobs to attend to.  I'm having trouble posting because all I feel like doing is whimpering and complaining.  And I don't want to come off sounding like one of those ungrateful pregnant women who don't have a clue that bad things can happen.   I wish that words weren't failing me so often lately.  I feel like if I could just get it all out on the screen, some of the weight would be lifted.  Alas. 

I don't remember being this terrified with Roo.   I know I was scared.  I know I had the same obsession with her movements and the intervals in between movements, and the doppler recordings.  But I think I still had a bit of my cloak of numbness around me because it was barely a year after Matthew and I didn't have much to lose. This time?  There's no cloak at all.  Also, I think my loss gets swept under the rug sometimes because it's been almost 7 years and people think we're over it or something bizarre like that.  It's been long enough that it's not the first thing that crosses people's minds when they see me struggling anymore.  

Tonight I gave Roo a new set of bathtub crayons for her evening bath.  She starts directing me to write various phrases on the bathtub walls.  She says, "Mommy, I want you to write that me and Mommy and Daddy love Baby Boy and Matthew."  She is just the best thing in the world.  I love the way she always remembers to include Matthew at the most random times.  We are so lucky to have her.

Since I can't resist sneaking in one physical complaint, here it is:  My feet are swollen.  This has never happened to me before, and I don't like it.  I wrongly assumed that because this is my third pregnancy, the symptoms would just be the usual ones.  Nope.