Upright, right?

34 weeks.

34 weeks.

Bruno and I slapping hands in the bedroom this morning in triumph. We got here. To 34 weeks. Remember 21 weeks? And 24 weeks. All the fear and worry and doubt.

And here we are, months later. And the restrictions are beginning to lift. I'm to practice sitting upright, and standing and walking a little. This morning we ate breakfast at the dining room table. I sat up in a chair, and I poured our juice, although I forgot I could now drink out of a glass, and poured mine into the biking squeeze bottle I've been attached-at-the-lips to for the last 11 weeks. I sat eye-level with my husband, and fell in love with his face all over again.

He went to work, and I shuffled slowly back and forth from table to fridge, putting away the jams. I lit candles and sat at the table in our only comfortable chair, wondering whether one could add a dining room set to a baby registry. I read a book on twins and sleep and I fell asleep in the chair; ah the third trimester.

At 9:30, only two hours into uprightousness, I am already beginning to feel it. Aches and pains and pressures in new and weird places. There might have been some merit to this lying down all the time thing. The task at hand is how to plumb the line; how to find the balance. To regain strength without pushing too hard. To weather the pain of rebuilding, but to know when I've gone far enough for the moment. To resist trying to get back to where I was all at once. Maybe not to try to get back at all but rather to get somewhere new from here.

It all feels so familiar.