For better or for worse, I save everything people send me. Letters, pictures, cards, drawings, notes passed in class… you name it. Tonight I finally sorted through this stuff with the intent to purge. Some I’ve been holding onto for years. Years. Letters my cousin wrote me in 1985, birthday cards from first grade, letters & cards from when I did an exchange in Japan in 1990, letters, cards and pictures when I went to college for a year in London 1994-5, correspondence from my Japanese host family and of course all the naive, retrospectfully regretful, tragically bitter-sweet or just plain bitter letters I’ve received from former boyfriends over the years. Now some are poetic, sweet and worthy of publishing, but some are obsessive, ridiculous and just plain “uggh”. While rereading, I found myself amazed at what these guys wrote. That I would inspire them to write such things—usually complimentary (and sometimes, not)—ended up making me feel like I’m reading someone else’s letters. Who is this crazy girl? Someone I only vaguely remember yet am. It’s a real mind bender.
I’ve been hanging on to all this stuff but I don’t really know why. There are things I’ll keep because of the sheer novelty of “letters sent.” Rarely do you write your feelings out with a pen anymore, but the other reason is the nostalgia and amazement I feel when I reread some of this stuff. It immediately transports me back to being 15, 16, 18, 21 and what was going on at the time. Events, people and places I’d forgotten have now been refreshed within the perspective of current day. It’s bizarre doing all this time traveling. Ken was doing the exact same thing last night going through stacks and stacks of old pictures he’s stored in the basement closet. The reason for all this nostalgia tripping: with room/storage being at a premium now with “the Wetus” on the way, we are going through all of our belongings and making sure we still really want this stuff around and optimizing our space. Next up is going through all the school papers and projects I also saved for some unexplained reason…
Here we are at 18 weeks. It's pretty amazing to think about how much time has gone by. I can feel the early movements of our baby and it is an amazing tickly feeling from the inside. We have nicknamed our unborn child "The Wetus" because one night I was reading to Ken from a pregnancy book and the phrase "weight of the fetus" came up. I was so tired that I just said "...the wetus..." and we both knew that was its name. We have great fun talking about what the Wetus likes or dislikes. Ken regularly sings to the Wetus before bed. People have cautioned us that the name may stick if we use it long enough but since we're not going to find out what gender the baby is, we need to call it something.
Today we had our second trimester ultrasound. This is the one where they measure EVERYTHING. While my apprehension going into this ultrasound was considerably lower than last time, that all changed once we were introduced to our sonogram technician who was an intern. I'm all for learning but it took an hour to do something that probably would have taken a practiced technician half that time. The Wetus was not cooperating and moving all over the place, granted, but she was really pushing hard on my tummy and it got a little fatiguing after awhile. But all in all, we got a good report and some more time looking at the baby. It's pretty amazing to see how active it is in there and to realize I feel very little of it at this stage. I know that will change.
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