back and forth emotions

This baby moves a lot.  Big, rolling moves that make my stomach twitch.  Even through an anterior placenta, which muffles movement.  Even through my extra belly fat.  I can feel her moving, rolling, spinning.  My husband can feel her from the outside.  She disturbs my dog when he's trying to lay on me.  Kayla never did any of that.  I ignored it mostly.  Made excuses.  Thought she was just a light mover.  Thought my belly fat prevented me from feeling the big kicks I now know are normal.  I still feel guilty about that.  I've probably written the exact same things before, I know I've thought them often.  So every time I get big movement from this baby girl, it is a little bittersweet.  She is alive, she is moving, she is growing.  It's the best, most special feeling.  Our connection, only the two of us, me and my second baby girl, know those movements.  But it also makes me sad, guilty.  I always loved Kayla's movements too but I was satisfied with small kicks, twitches, and believed that her movements were just "slowing down" at 32 and 33 weeks.  Maybe I will always feel this way to some extent--every thing this baby does from the moment she is born alive (please be born alive!), will be something that Kayla never did.  That will be wonderful, so wonderful that I can't even imagine it right now.  But it will also be a reminder of everything that I missed with Kayla. 

Yesterday baby wasn't moving so much.  I had a biophysical profile in the morning, which she passed with an 8/8 as normal, within 10 minutes (there is a 30 minute time limit to pass the test before they would send me to the hospital).  So I knew she was alive, she just wasn't moving around.  She is still breech and curled behind my placenta, and she appeared to be sleeping.    I could see her heart beating on the screen and watched as she practiced breathing (so cool!)  but in those few minutes when she hadn't moved that much, all I could picture was the ultrasound of Kayla's lifeless body and the ultrasound tech asking me when I had felt her move last.  So even though everything was ok, it left me tense and scared the rest of the day. 

Today I woke up to lots of movement, kicks and punches that have lasted all day, every time I even sit down for a second she is reminding me that she's growing and running out of space.  I've felt relieved and happy all day.  The ups and downs are so exhausting, but they are worth it.  I had a "radical" thought today---what if I could just spend the rest of my pregnancy acting as if I truly believed everything was going to be fine?  Because that's what I want to believe, that's what the STATISTICS say is going to happen.  That's what every single person who knows me or has casually seen me before believes  (unless they have delivered a stillborn baby as well).  So why can't I just let myself enjoy this?  Even if I'm faking it?!  Maybe I will trick myself into actually enjoying it.  So I went out to lunch with my friend, wore my best maternity clothes, put makeup on and tried to exude a third-trimester pregnancy "glow."  I cleaned up our guest room and tomorrow my parents are coming into town.  My mom really wants to help do baby preparations so I might actually unpack some of Kayla's things from the plastic tubs they have been stored in for over a year now.  I took out our bassinet from the box and put it together.  I am going to try my best to plan like I am going to have a baby.  A live one. One that gets to come home with us and live here and be loved for many, many years.  It is hard to plan like that, because I'm still not sure.  There is always that dark cloud following me around saying "what if."  But I'm going to TRY to be positive because being scared and imagining the worst is making me feel so tired and so unlike myself. 

Baby girl in 3D a couple of weeks ago when she was 29 weeks...hands, cord and placenta got in the way but it's still a picture I could stare at all day!