#Microblog Mondays: Seasons

So, April.

I've been kind of hanging suspended in this kind of slow-mo, hazy bliss the last few weeks. You know, those moments where the rays of sun slant in at an opaque angle and you can almost hear the perfection of the world in all its idiosyncrasies, thrumming around you?

That's where I am. Noticing the details. Awe-inspired by seemingly everything; the lazy buzz of a fat bumblebee; the taste of that strawberry basil gelato the cafe 'round the corner is peddling; the smell of rain as it hits the warm pavement; the fact that I am mother to a vibrant daughter. A daughter who is nearly one.

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We seem to have skipped spring altogether this year. It snowed on the first day of Pesach and on Easter Sunday.

Last year during the Easter long weekend I was hospitalized in the Labour and Delivery ward with worrying symptoms of a suspected pulmonary embolism, told I could lose both my own life and that of my then-unborn daughter. I was discharged with a confirmed diagnosis of pre-eclampsia, after spending a scary, sleepless night alone. (I told you it was a crazy time, I just never found the wherewithal to explain exactly how.) I had sent H home to bank his sleep before the new parent onslaught began; that night before he left he leaned in to my belly and whispered, asking our little seedling to watch over her mama that night, our roles reversed after long months of me caring for her. She duly obliged, kicking and rolling all night inside me, keeping me company through those long, dark hours. I was struggling hard to breath, panicked, feeling like a huge weight was pressed to my chest; it was this together with elevated proteins and white blood cell count that made them suspect pulmonary embolism. Looking back, I wonder how much of the trouble breathing could have been trauma-induced: a final, terrifying chapter in a pregnancy after loss beset with worries.

With Girl Wonder somersaulting her way through the night, reminding me I wasn't alone, I finally felt settled on her name. I had been sitting on the fence about our shortlist, but H was lobbying hard already for the name we eventually chose, a very traditional one that means hope in Hebrew. 'She owns that name', he said; a kid with her back story was hope personified, he said. Through that night as she brought hope and strength to calm my fears, I couldn't help but agree. I told her so and felt a tiny thump. It was final then.

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And after snowfall and temperatures that have kept us hibernating for long into this spring, it's suddenly strappy sundress weather. Summer bypassed us last year; it was a grey, English washout of a summer, not that we would have been able to enjoy it had the sun shone. We spent most of the season in sterile hospital rooms breathing stale air. I remember looking out at the leaden sky from Girl Wonder's isolation room on the 10th floor PICU. I remember poring over journal articles trying to come to grips with the CMV diagnosis that had wracked her tiny body, feeling as though we were about to become the punchline of some cruel cosmic joke, getting through that whole pregnancy only to have our longed-for child taken from us by a random infection. I remember subsisting on little sleep and bad coffee, donuts and hash browns from the hospital canteen.

This year, we are looking forward to summer holidays in Italy; to trips in Hungary and the Alps; picnics in the city's parks. With our one year old daughter.

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During all those long years of loss, infertility and loneliness, I often comforted myself with the thought that life can change profoundly and unexpectedly in a single season, in the blink of an eye. 'Everything could look completely different this time next year', I told myself, hoping it might be for the better.

But even now, living in the laughter-soaked truth of that adage, I can hardly believe my luck most days. 

Written as part of Mel's Microblog Mondays. Check it out here to participate.