It's been longer than the last 1 1/2 weeks that I've felt completely drained, utterly exhausted. Worthless. The smallest tasks required so much energy. I had a good case of morning sickness, but I'd had worse. And I've had more exhaustion before (with the pregnancy before Avi), but I was so tired. But I kept comparing how I was feeling with the pregnancy before Avi, so I thought I wasn't doing too badly.

Today I feel incredible. I feel great. I feel like eating like a usually do, I feel like I could take a walk. I feel like I have the energy to write, to work on my house, to play with the kids, to go buy more of my protein whole grain cereal. I feel like seeing people, like making friends. I feel like listening to music again. All of this is new

though not...

It's like I've had a bad case of the 'flu that never ended until the point that it became my normal. I started to wonder how I ever did all I often did in a day. Where did I get the energy? Am I just naturally a lazy person and I was misremembering? Maybe I was depressed from the move and all the other big changes and eventually I would hit my groove and everything would be okay again.

As last week progressed I felt better and better -- Wednesday was better than Tuesday, Thursday better than Wednesday, Friday better than Thursday. I was still exhausted and it took all I had to go to the store to buy diapers. But then Saturday came, and I felt horrible. Rice thought perhaps I was anemic, or my blood sugar was out of whack, or that I needed caffeine. I spent most of the day in bed, and then at about 5:30 there was a great deal of pain, so I took a couple Vicodin (which is a lot for me, but I knew from experience I would need that much), and then at 6:00 the miscarriage progressed significantly. No great details here, but we'll say that if I didn't know what was wrong I would have gone to the doctor, thinking I was dying.

Though I mostly slept through Saturday, I slept like a baby Saturday night. Yesterday was a better day -- not perfect, but I made a very simple dinner, and a gluten-free cake in my fleur-de-lis bundt pan and lemon sauce, also simple (the vanilla bean cake came out of a mix my MIL gave me -- quite good, especially for a gluten-free cake out of a box).

I had promised Rice's grandmother on the 28th I'd come see her soon with something sweet. (She has a weakness for sweets.) And then of course I was in the ER the next day and never came. And no one told her what had happened, I'm sure -- she'd sit in her chair and worry and worry and stew and bubble and freak herself out, and it would do no good.

So, last night I took her a piece of Rice's cake, with the promise that next time I'd bring something with real flour. We visited for an hour, until she started to fall asleep, and then I came home, still feeling more and more like myself.

I slept until not quite 9 this morning, which is a lot later than usual, but still earlier than I have been getting up. I made the kids their second breakfast, we're listening to music, we danced. (I turned on the mp3 player, which has been sitting in my laptop bag for exactly a month, and started playing music they know. And they were so excited -- they both started dancing along.) And then I ate my proteinated cereal with dried blueberries, and was perfectly happy with it.

I'm relieved. So relieved. I was sick, but not in any way I had suspected. Things were going wrong, but I didn't know what. And it's almost like I'm completely snapping out of it.

It's been a hard year. I was really depressed this winter, and good things came in the spring, but I was still low at times. So far it's been a rough summer, but things are looking up.

I feel capable of putting my house together, of getting some good writing done (which, despite what one may tell you -- and I know a lot of you know -- is bloody hard work). I feel like getting out and finding my happy places here.

Things will be okay.