Know your onion

Dear Frijole,

I haven't written much here.  Actually, I haven't written anywhere at all.  Even though my head is filled with words constantly, I don't seem to have the energy to put them into anything bigger than a text message.  It's not your fault.  It's the rest of the world's fault.  It's my fault.

I am 17 weeks pregnant with you and, honestly, there isn't a moment when I don't think about you.  I never quite know what to say when people ask, "How is the baby?"  You're so quiet in there!  I THINK you're okay.  I'm not having any problems.  Our ultrasound and bloodwork have all come back showing that you are healthy and busy developing.  You SEEM to be okay.  I just wish I could feel you move.  I keep hearing and reading that this should happen any time now, and I keep waiting and waiting.  Sometimes I feel an uneasiness within me.  It's hard to explain--like a restlessness that does not originate with me.  At those times I feel certain you must be moving around in there but I just cannot feel it yet.  I am told it will happen all too soon and that, at times, I will want to go to sleep and wish you would STOP moving.  It's hard for me to imagine what that must be like.

I'm struggling to make the right decisions for us, Frijole.  My psychiatrist and I butt heads over what is right for me, for you.  She is strongly advocating that I undergo electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) to treat my severe and endless depression.  After learning more about it, I don't think that I can take the risk involved.  And so I struggle to find other ways to take care of myself.  Of both of us. 

Most of the time I feel so far away and alone, and the obstacles between here and there seem insurmountable.  It is still true that not very many people know about you, and I feel very strongly that it has to stay that way until you are born.  There's plenty of other people's criticisms of my life and my decisions to go around, and I feel like I will lose my mind if they criticize the existence of you, too. 

You.  My one little light.

In three weeks we will have another ultrasound and I should be able to find out if you are a Frijolita or a Frijolito.  I can't wait to see you again.  In the meantime, I will keep plodding along, doing my very best.

All my love,

Mama