Twenty-Nine Weeks : Heavy Light-as-air Hearted

I've been having one of those days.

For weeks.

I don't want to say it's depression, but calling it the blues seems a little childish. Whatever the classification or vocabulary, it was there and all around me and I barely recognized that I had another thing brewing in my body. It started out small; bed rest way back in early December. I'm not the most social person on the planet, but I do like to get out and see friends and family and travel. I like wandering around Target. I'll admit that I find my inner peace on long walks, whether it is somewhere in nature or simply on the pavement around the neighborhood.

Suddenly, I felt like I was staring at four walls; the same four walls over and over. Robert brought down a TV to put in our bedroom. I watched Netflix and flipped through endless pages of books. I would open the blinds every day and get dressed to try to ward off the negativity.

But it slipped in anyways.

It's been bad recently. I've been sour and felt down, and although I felt so lonely, I didn't want to be held close. I was a (big) ball of contradiction.

I went to a girl's dinner Monday night with some friends I hadn't seen in forever. And Wednesday, Kelly came over and treated me to a day of "Operation Beautify Elizabeth" wherein she not only colored my locks, but trimmed them, cleaned up my brows and even painted my toenails. I was feeling so much better.

Dress: Michael Kors (non-maternity)

And yet, so lonely.

Saturday of this week, Robert had planned to do yard work and clean the house, and we talked about having a friend over who is watching his three kids solo while his wife is out of town. I offered to make a simple dinner for all of us. Robert had a weird reaction to it, but let me charge forward with planning. I kept reassuring him it was going to be easy to fix, and I wouldn't exhaust myself with work.

Robert told me that he didn't want me doing all the work on Saturday, so he insisted I do part of the prep work on Friday. Saturday morning came and there was nothing much to do. We made pancakes and played with Evan, and talked about plans. Robert could sense I was still struggling a bit with it, whatever it was, and offered to take me out to lunch. We went out and it was nice, but I was tired.

When we returned home, I laid down for a nap. I was in a deep sleep; two fans whirling air around me and tucked in with my Snoogle. Robert came and patted me awake, "Come with me for a second." I sat up. Shit, I thought, I slept late and his friend is here and dinner isn't ready. I sprang up (as fast as a twenty-nine-week pregnant-with-twins lady springs) and Robert said, "take your time, put on pants." I apologized for being so sleepy and lazy and popped open the bedroom door. It was still really bright out. I turned back to look at the clock. It blinked 2:15.

I froze. What was going on?

I poked my head out and saw some flowers on the living room table. "Are people here?" I asked Robert. He smiled and kissed my forehead. I rounded the column on the stairs and saw it. Saw them. All of them. A lot of them. My friends. My family. All there, waiting for me in the entry way.

And I cried.

Me, the girl who makes it impossible to do surprises and has declined offers of baby showers had the best damn baby shower, ever.

I was speechless. There were friends from online. And church. And the neighborhood. And family from here. And family from far. And friends of family.

The thing is; I've had this skeleton in my closet since February of 2010. I can tell you today, but I couldn't have told you yesterday.

When I was pregnant with Evan, Kelly wanted to throw me a baby shower. Robert and I had struggled to get pregnant, and my pregnancy was hard. Kelly was living out of town at the time, but her parents lived close by to me, and she had set the party for there. She invited my friends and had this elaborately beautiful buffet of food and cute decor.

And two people came. Three if you count Kelly. And five if you count my mother and my mother-in-law. I was humiliated.

I enjoyed the time with my three friends and ate cake, but I hurt. It wasn't about gifts. It wasn't anything physical; it was feeling alone. I felt that I didn't have support and love. That no one cared enough about me to show up and eat cake. I felt so unsupported and lonely and friendless. I felt like a loser. A failure. I felt as though no one cared I was having a baby. Whether those were accurate feelings or not is not the point; that is how I felt.

There was this raw undercurrent of emotion that stayed with me for a long time. I cried about that day on rare, unrelated occasions. I never said anything to anyone other than Robert how I felt so friendless and sad. I let a bunch of circumstances and bad timing affect how I felt. I carried that with me since then.

When I got pregnant this time, people who knew I had such a small turn-out at a previous shower offered to throw me one. I declined. I didn't want to feel that way ever again, and the best route I knew to take was avoid a party at all costs.

Not satisfied with that answer, my friends approached Robert. He thought it was a wonderful idea, but stated, "if, and only if, there is a good turn out." Again, not about the gifts. It's about the support. The people. The village of love you need and surround yourself with when you're vulnerable and need help and have lots of figuring out to do.

And yesterday was exactly that. I hugged so many friends and smiled and was patted by dozens of hands. I ate and drank and laughed. And these babies? These two wonderful little miracles still growing inside were celebrated and loved on and spoiled. People brought gifts for Evan, too.

My house was this loud, bright, chaotic frenzy of friendship and celebration yesterday. It was definitely one of the best days of my life.

After everyone left, way after the sun set, Robert pulled me close. I cried. I had this deep, emotional release of everything I'd held in for two years and in that instant, that moment when I peered into my front entry way and saw dozens of smiling faces just waiting to celebrate my family, all that hurt and sorrow and self-consciousness was replaced. It was disintegrated into thin air and disappeared over conversations and smiles and hugs.

"You deserved all that," Robert said. I shook my head. I don't like the word deserve. It's tricky and finicky.

"You needed that," Robert said. "I did," I replied. I stayed there in his arms, feeling so calm. "I feel so loved" I said after a long pause.

And I am. And I know it. And I don't know adequate words to thank people for what they did for me. Because love? It can be hard to come by sometimes. But knowing that I'm not alone, that I'm not forgotten, and that there are so many people out there wanting and wishing the best for me was the best gift I could have ever received.

You don't want to know how far I had to bend over to see my feet and what was caught on them.