Well

Things are going well.

As soon as I write that, I feel a compulsion to erase it, just in case. But, no: I'm going to stand firm and say that things are going well. I'm 29 weeks and 4 days pregnant, have accomplished 6 weeks of strict bed rest, 1 week without Mama Ratka, and I'm doing well on all fronts.

How cool is that.

Before it gets too far away, I have to take a moment to express how extraordinary it was to have Mama Ratka living with us and caring for us for a month.

I'll be the first to admit that I had my apprehensions. I'm East Coast American born and raised, and we ascribe to the guest/fish theory of visitors: after three days, they both sort of stink. So I was a little nervous about having someone live with me for a month. However I have to say that I feel absolutely transformed by the experience. I am so profoundly grateful to my mother-in-law for giving up her entire life for a month, traveling across an ocean and then a continent to cook our meals and do our dishes, and help me stay fed and horizontal and constantly cared for during the most frightening part of this pregnancy. She distracted me by forcing me to speak and think in Croatian, she kept tensions low between Bruno and me by removing many of the tasks that would have otherwise fallen to Bruno, she got wrapped up in the TV show Lost just like we did. I am ashamed to say that I now know the verb "to iron" in Croatian, although I only have a passing acquaintance with this verb in English. And the day she washed our windows I actually scolded her and told her she had to stop or my husband would no longer love me. And we both laughed.

And now that she has returned to her home, my parents and friends have taken up the torch. Someone stops by daily to fix me lunch, move my tutoring materials into the living room, clean up the dishes or help me straighten the room by proxy. Every morning around 8am, Mom calls to check in and ask what I need. Last week, I vicariously shopped at Costco by talking Dad through the various aisles and products as he collected our groceries. Monday, my darling friend Ellen came by with her newborn daughter, and while Ellen heated up lunch for us, her daughter successfully inaugurated one of our four bouncy seats. Mom was by the next three days in a row taking the mid-day duties, with a little fun with designing a nursery thrown in. And today, Dad manned the stove while I called out instructions from the living room: an hour and half later a beautiful Shepherd's Pie was assembled for dinner.

I am filled with awe and gratitude for the wonderful friends and family I have in my life. And for the fact that I continue to lie here day after day feeling the punts and squirreling and punches and wiggles of this bag of cats I call my belly.

Yup. It is undeniable. Things are going well.