Two Weeks in the Life

It's been two weeks since we had the first ultrasound.
In two weeks, a life completely transformed.
No matter how this unfolds, we are forever changed.
This is the stuff that builds the story of one's life, that forms and defines who you are.
This is a chance to show life - to show ourselves, our families and community, our baby girl - what we're made of.
To step even more fully into ourselves.

With the help of some friends, one suitcase is packed, two more are half packed.
A bunch of cupboards and shelves in our apartment are emptied.
Beautiful meals have been brought for lunch and dinner by our HUC friends, and will continue to flow in until we leave.
Baby and I and Daddy and Big Sister are well nourished.
A group of HUC friends will help get our apartment clean right before we leave.
Others are helping with last minute small details.

Yesterday at the end of tefillah morning services, David and I stood up in front of everyone and he told them what is ahead for us.
Some people already knew, but most didn't.
Tears began welling up in people's eyes, and in our own.
We asked for prayers, for positive thoughts, for faith, and Dave asked them to fully relish every day of their lives, the opportunity to be learning and pursuing the paths they are on.
We got a lot of amazing hugs and love and blessings afterwards.

Yesterday was an emotional day, and afterwards we treated ourselves to haircuts - something that is much cheaper in Israel than in SF.
It felt good to walk and do something nice for ourselves.
I was drained by evening, and fell asleep like a log until Dahlia came into our room around 4am after she woke up from a bad dream about dragons.
For a while I lay awake just looking at her sleeping face in between us.
She's so unbelievably beautiful, like a doll.
My big brave girl who is also being called on to show what she's made of - which is some pretty amazing moxie and vitality, and a huge amount of compassion and love.

I had the amnio on Sunday, and that took a lot out of me emotionally and physically.
There is something that happens in the body when it goes through something that brings up fear.
Something like shock, or PTSD, on a smaller scale.
For the first time that morning before the amnio, I felt fear for myself.
Fear at having a large needle put into my belly, that visceral part of the body that feels so vulnerable.
Fear about my body going through yet another challenging thing; fear that can sometimes trigger some old body stuff.
My friend Alesia suggested something that helped: that allowing myself to fear something concrete and finite like the amnio was helpful amid the larger, more abstract fear of so many unknowns ahead.
So I closed my eyes and breathed as my heart raced and thumped in my chest until it was over, fortunately pretty quickly.
Dr. Yagel, who did our second ultrasound so he knew us, was very gentle, steady, calm and reassuring.

I continue to hold only optimism.
When my mind wanders to worrying - about things like when will my emergency MediCal come through and what will I do for insurance after it expires; like what the results of the amnio will be - I take a deep breath and bring myself back to the present, to a positive place.
I put my hand on my belly and feel Tikva kicking inside.
I swear she can read my mind, because I will be worrying, and she'll elbow me or punch her little hand outwards, telling me to knock it off.
Or when I am thinking beautiful things about her, with images in my mind of her dancing with her big sister, she'll wiggle around as if she is already dancing.

I don't want to hear negativity.
I cannot hold people's fears.
At HUC, one student asked me yesterday, "So, are you totally freaking out?!"
I blew it off and said not at all, that we're way past that stage now; that's his stuff projected outwards, and it's not about me, and it's not for me to work out for him.

I don't want to hear "what ifs?" and possibilities for the worst outcomes.
I'm not existing there, and that is not naive or idealistic.
I'm in the right here and right now, one moment and step at a time.
We're facing each challenge as it comes, in its time, guided by our hearts, our intuitive centers, and assisted by our minds.

I've often imagined my mind as a board room, with all the voices in my head as the members of the board.
It can get chaotic in there, especially when it feels like no one is in charge to facilitate the meeting.
When it gets too much, that's when I need to shut the meeting down completely.
Go down to the cafeteria that is my gut, get a snack, and listen to that quiet still voice of intuition.
My mind cannot lead the way, but it can serve as my loyal assistant, there to help me implement the choices and decisions I make.
The head of the board, of the organization that is Gal, is my intuition and my heart - co-directors.
They have never led me astray in 36 years, and they won't now.
But I have to keep listening to them, trusting them.

On February 13th we'll be on a plane home to San Francisco.
By Valentine's Day we'll be back in the place where I left a big chunk of my heart.
I wrote sometime many months ago that it took me about 3-4 months to feel as though I'd fully landed in Jerusalem.
Now I wonder if I ever did fully land, because when I picture myself landing with both of my feet, I see myself doing so in California.
When I close my eyes and picture myself hugging my sister, my father, all of our family and amazing friends, the image that comes to mind is of me falling backwards - completely trusting and held - into a bouncy bed of soft white feathers.
Aaahhh...