Trusting

I am 17 weeks and 1 day pregnant today. Which is awesome! Almost four full months! I have a little bump that admittedly most people wouldn't notice if they weren't looking but it's there. This reminds me: you know that cultural sensitivity exercise where they ask you to "draw an Indian?" And the point is that an American Indian doesn't need to always be dressed in feathers or whatever but can look like anybody else. That reminds me of pregnancy. "Draw a pregnant woman." And up until recently I'd have thought immediately of a woman with a gloriously developed belly. And that's certainly reflected on absolutely everything written about pregnancy. But it's also a woman with an entirely flat stomach, or someone who looks like me, or someone a little between all these points. Being on the verge of birth takes a long time. Pregnant women are just, women.

The best thing to report is that I heard the baby's heartbeat yesterday. Strong and rhythmic and amazing, 145 bpm. I am so so relieved to know the baby in there that I still can't feel is alive and as far as we can tell, well. I cried so hard for a while on the car as we left the midwives' office, I was just overcome. With relief and love and I hardly knew what else. I didn't like how yesterday's appointment went. I was listened to and responded to and that was good, but I have a hard time getting over a few things that really shook me up and ended up leaving me a bigger emotional wreck than I'd planned on, or needed to be. First, you have to understand that both MFP and I are really anxious in the days before the appointment. We fear that we'll find out the baby has died again, like we did on my very first visit to that office, my first prenatal visit ever. I go over the traumatic miscarriages in my head and remember all the anger and resentment I feel about the treatment I got. I made a list of questions to ask the midwife I'd be meeting on Monday, and I admit I'd heard she was especially gentle and I was looking forward to telling my story of the miscarriages to someone who seemed responsive. I don't really feel like the one midwife I've seen really gets how this is affecting how I feel about my treatment--that I'm still kind of pissed that the midwives were totally not there for me during the MCs, and how quickly, despite my advocating for myself, I got funneled through the medical system like an anonymous piece of meet without help or adequate preparation; how I was poo pooed. Yeah, partly I want a, "we can do better and will try to," but mostly I want an answer to, "how is my birth and pregnancy not going to go the same way?" Anyway, they get me into the exam room and say the same midwife as before will see me, fucking with my mental expectations of the visit. There are several midwives in the practice and any one of them could deliver my baby, so it's important I get to meet all of them in advance; plus like I said, I was looking forward to trying a new one; and thirdly, I have PTSD and am nervous as hell about each visit, so anything totally controllable that gets fucked up heightens my fears. And did I get a, sorry we messed that up? No of course. I got, make sure you tell the desk next time. Well I did, actually, and the desk fucked up. They did offer to let me switch, but I didn't know how long I'd have to wait to get in to see the other one, and I wanted to hear the fucking heartbeat. So then, and this is what really fucked me up, she asked if the midwife in training can look for the heartbeat. I like her, and the last time the midwife found it super quick so I was like sure. BAD MOVE. NEVER AGAIN. She struggled to locate it. I became distraught, though likely I just froze. I said, oh no, here it is. In my head, I was convinced, this is over. Yet again, it was stupid to hope. I'll have to untell everyone. I knew I shouldn't have counted on this. That's it, everything I feared is happening. Meanwhile the experienced midwife is smiling, oh it's okay, which is not helpful to have my feelings be so denied, and then she took over and found it right away. And then I couldn't even sob with relief as I wanted to because it's a Doppler and if I move, you can't hear it, and I REALLY wanted to hear it. I think the wait was only 20-30 seconds, who knows, but in my trauma brain it didn't matter, it is seared into my brain, it was so fucking intense. Bastards. This was after they asked me how I was doing and I said nervous because we're always nervous about hearing the heartbeat! Now I know never to let any trainee do a damn thing to me--do it on some mother who's only had healthy pregnancies and who doesn't have PTSD, ok?--but they should have fucking known anyway, just have the trainee look for the heartbeat AFTER the experienced one already found it! Okay?! And then she's like, you'll need a pap, and I'm like, way to not read my chart, asshole, I had it last time (ok you can see I'm having a hard time trusting my caregivers), and suggested that I take anxiety meds (out of your scope, lady, also, will they cure the memory of losing two pregnancies in a row, or the fact that 1 in 160 pregnancies end in loss?), telling me I should stop biking to work (um, no), and asking me when I was going to feel like things were okay with this pregnancy, all in a jokey, friendly, not too condescending or edict--issuing way, but COME ON. Pregnant women are concerned about their baby's health? That's a universal experience. Women who've had multiple losses fearing that the baby might not have a heartbeat, and needing some goddamn consideration of that when deciding how to train a midwife? OBVIOUS. Woman with PTSD who has rehearsed how the appointment will go needing to be sure of who, exactly, she'll be seeing that day? Maybe not as obvious, but you can fucking say sorry when you fuck up instead of telling me what I'll do differently!

Apparently I'm still very angry about how that went. On the day of, I was just a ball of tears and exhausted and I lost hours of work unexpectedly because of it. Believe it or not, I still feel like I'm in a good place overall with my care. It's just really hard for me to allow flaws. All of these are small in the context of the visit except for subjecting me to the needless search for the heartbeat, and secondly,  fucking up who I'd be seeing. MFP is going to call in advance each time in the future to make sure they have it right, so that my very traumatized self can have as few surprises as possible. Also, I am going to work on getting into the mindset that my job is to get the best care possible, and that involves being respectful, but it does not necessarily involve being nice or protecting the midwife's feelings--i.e., I will try to practice saying no (to allowing the trainee to do anything, or anything), and saying when something is not helpful, and asking for what I need instead. I am afraid of being invalidated during labor, I'm afraid of insensitive people who neither know nor care about my story being around me in labor, I'm afraid of unnecessary pain resulting from my own inability to advocate for myself, I'm afraid of needing to be an adversary rather than a partner with my caregivers. I feel afraid of imperfections in the people from whom I'm asking for help in this process. Of course they will be imperfect, but what level of imperfection am I willing to tolerate when my baby's life is at stake? When this kind of health matter is trauma central for me, for other reasons but also because of the recurrent miscarriages? It's hard to feel safe and okay and trusting, even when I feel--or especially when I feel--utterly floored by how happy and relieved I am that I'm this far and the baby's okay.

I got a list of doulas from the midwife, and I'm calling them for interviews. I think a doula can provide some of the individualized support I'm looking for, at least in the birth part. And maybe a postpartum doula for after.

Fear and not-fear

I am 16 weeks pregnant today. That makes me so happy. I am so far along! This feels so very pregnant! I struggle with feeling like an imposter in a lot of areas of my life, but especially pregnancy. I remember saying to the midwife right after we heard pregnancy #1 didn't have a heartbeat something like, I feel so stupid, like I don't belong here. Like I came in acting like a pregnant woman but really, I'm not like all the others. The midwife was like oh no of course not. I wish she'd stayed and talked to me for much much longer, and had been there for my follow up appointment. I wish I'd heard more, you really were pregnant. This happens. It's particularly cruel. You couldn't have known. With this current pregnancy #3, I am finally feeling like 16 weeks is "legitimately" pregnant, it doesn't sound like I'm going around foolishly believing that I'm pregnant and telling people too early (I would NEVER judge anyone else as harshly as I judge myself). I've even felt like an imposter in the pregnancy loss community. I've had two miscarriages, but not 3. And I feel ashamed that I sought a support group when my losses were so early, even though no one there has ever belittled my losses. And why would I be ashamed of being spared the intensified suffering of an even later loss? A few weeks ago the pregnancy loss group held a tulip planting ceremony. I feel ashamed (sense a pattern?) that I didn't go. I didn't go for lots of reasons--scheduling conflicts, the way I don't really think of my losses as having severed a connection with a particular child, but rather a moment of cruel suffering and dashed hopes that I endured; the fact that ceremonies like this drive home for me the ways recurrent miscarriage feels different for me than the experience of later term loss; the feeling of hopefulness about this pregnancy that I've had lately since I've never experienced this trimester before, and so my thoughts have been on other things than my miscarriage grief, and I didn't want to turn them back. I feel guilty for feeling hopeful. I feel guilty for not feeling afraid. Am I just avoiding my fear? Is it growing somewhere undetected, ready to turn somehow malignant? Or do I really just not feel much? If I don't, am I like the ignorant, insensitive people not living on Planet My Baby Died that we used to talk about in the pregnancy loss group, and direct our anger toward?

Or maybe I don't feel much fear because unlike women who've experienced later losses, I am hitting milestones like 16 weeks for the first time; growing a bump for the first time; making concrete parenting plans for the first time, and maybe good fortune doesn't mean I'm ignorant or insensitive. I was raised on a steady diet of guilt and shame. It makes sense that my default setting would be to feel that again the moment I feel hopeful and good. 

My therapist said that I have to really feel that I deserved the kind of love that I want to give my child, because every child deserves that, in order to be able to really fully give it to my child. I see this kind of double standard everywhere around me and it makes me mad: people who excuse and tolerate the pain of things their parents did to them, not really mourning it or giving themselves the compassion of healing from it, when they themselves would never in a million years treat another person that way. I'm talking about emotional, physical, and sexual abuse here, not small slights. Like there's one standard for what's an acceptable way to treat me, and then there's another for everybody else. Yet actually believing that about myself--that I deserved what every child deserves, what my child deserves--seems nearly impossible. And trying is very painful. But I see why I have to do it. I think about telling my child every year on its birthday--"and then they put you on my chest and I talked to you so you'd hear my voice to comfort you, because I knew you'd been through something hard," and hugging her or him and saying I love you so so much. And the instant I think of that incredibly longed-for dream, which itself makes me tear up with emotion, I feel an enormous pang of pain, knowing my mother never did anything of the kind. Knowing that she could barely remember the difference between the day of my birth and that of her other children; that the first memory she has of my life is one of resentment at my horrible father; that she said I was born at a "crabby time," that just a few years ago she dropped some birthday gesture off on my porch and didn't even bother to knock to say hello, even though all the lights were on and we were clearly home. I can barely comprehend the pain of truly facing that when all is said and done I just wasn't that special to my mom, that despite all the words she could say now in response to that statement, her actions have always spoken louder. I will never, ever, ever know how my child will feel when I tell it its birth story with love, when I cuddle my child and say I love you so much, I have loved you long before you were ever born, and I have quilts I sewed for you in 2013 to prove it. And trust me that hurts like a bitch. That fucking hurts. And that's why people like me tell ourselves that "it's different" for us versus our children in millions of subtle ways; that we keep going back and trying to please people who betrayed us and silenced us and put us down, when we would never in a million years want our children to spend that energy on someone who hurt them, we'd rather they grieve for the loss of what that person won't be to them and focus on giving ourselves the love we need, and assembling only people around us who will do the same.

So that's what I've been focusing on, now that the panic from my own miscarriage traumas has subsided. I want to love my baby and heal my damn self. I recently discovered postpartum doulas. I literally made a list of wishes for what I'd ideally like help with after the birth, and then I learned that there are actually women who do all of these things for a fee, and give you all that emotional validation to boot. I felt elated. One of the sites even said, "your mother, without all the strings attached." Doulas mother the mother. That made me cry. I told an acquaintance that I know I'll be sad postpartum because my mother won't be involved, and she was like, isn't she in town? And I lament how rare it is to find a person who doesn't automatically assume a mother is a good thing. Even years ago when I was still playing the denial game, I wouldn't have wanted her "help," I don't feel comfortable around her. And yeah, she could wash dishes and do laundry, but I'd have to beg for it, and I'd have to face how I know she favors my brothers' kids (because daughters are assumed to always take care of themselves), and how she would be near me without being attentive or affectionate or interested in getting to know me as a person, and it would have caused emotional turmoil. Post-denial, it's impossible. How could she carry me in her body and then not lift a finger to protect me from my horribly abusive father? The more pregnant I get the sadder I am about my relationship with her and horrified that she could have treated me in a way I would never treat my child. 

See how I keep just assuming that this will be one day a child? I feel guilty about that, too. I know that there really is a very high likelihood that it will be, safely. I also know it's not for certain, but I have the luxury of not having experienced the opposite, and the lack of that particular trauma makes it easier to say that. Just like my child will hopefully go through life with the luxury of believing that s/he doesn't have to feel ashamed without a reason; that caregivers are generally trustworthy; that mothers are usually good to have around.

I get annoyed at how condescending much of the pregnancy info is, so cutesy and lame, like I'm an idiot. I'm not an idiot. This pregnancy brings up big, complex emotions. It does for many women, for many particular reasons. All that processing gets ignored in favor of "your baby is an avocado!"

One last thing. Cleaning out the closet that will hopefully be the baby's closet, I found a bag, thrown in haphazardly. Inside I found a stuffed Paddington Bear, I'd bought suddenly but after much anguish, on a trip to London, just after miscarriage #1, and right after I'd gotten my period after our first cycle of trying again. I thought about the pain of the miscarriages for the first time in a long time. That was such a brutally horrible time in my life. Really, getting my period that first time after trying with the OPK post-MC was almost worse than the miscarriage itself. I learned that I wasn't "owed" anything, that no rainbow was going to be shining its healing light anytime soon. I remember vividly sitting in the bath in London, and suddenly breaking out into sobs. Wails. "I want my baby! I want my baby!" I was supposed to be shopping for baby clothes on our trip. I was supposed to be nearly showing. Instead I ran out into the streets and wandered at night, wishing I could throw myself in front of a bus. I couldn't have a loving mother, and I couldn't be one, either. I was cut out from one of the most basic human relationships, in any form. I made it back that night to a worried MFP. I remember that. But I had completely blocked out that I had bought the Paddington until I found it again in a moment of forced hope for this new pregnancy. I don't feel too much fear these days anymore that the baby is/will be dead, but that doesn't mean it's easy to actively hope--to get myself to do things "as if" the baby is coming, like really clean out a closet, or, like I did today, force myself to buy a book I was holding that I really want to read to my child. I looked at his little red galoshes and toggle coat and I was astounded that even in that moment of despair, that time I remember as being one of utter hopelessness and misery when it comes to thoughts of being a mother, I took that leap of faith. That I winced and ran back after first dismissing the idea, and bought it anyway. Because I wanted this pregnancy, the one I'm having right now, the healthy one, the one that just hit sixteen weeks, the one that I told work about to schedule my leave, the one that led to the loaned pregnancy pillow I'm sleeping with and the clothes that no longer fit and the new bras and the now pretty much undeniable little bump, I wanted it so much that I was willing to commit an act of defiance of that despair. I cried, really hard, when I found that bear. For myself, having to go through that horrible time, but mostly, because I could hardly believe that bear was now, soon, if I keep doing some cleaning and reorganizing, going to decorate that deeply longed-for baby's room. This is really happening. At last. 

Rainbows

A friend had her healthy, screaming baby this week after losing her daughter last year. I've been thinking about the story that inspires the term "rainbow baby" and I thought I'd go directly to the source.

And God spake unto Noah, I will establish my covenant with you; ... neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth. ... I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth. (Genesis 9: 8-17, KJV)

There's been a cataclysm. God promises the people that a cataclysm like this will not happen again, and that this promise to the people will always be remembered, and every time they see a rainbow, they will know that they are remembered, and they'll remember the terrible time, and the promise that it won't happen again.

Obviously, with recurrent miscarriage, I know that losses can happen more than once, even when it seems unthinkable. That's how I felt this time last year. Pregnant for the second time, so glad we were finally pregnant again after what felt like an eternity (4 or 5 months), and I just thought there's no way this could happen again. But it did. In a totally different way; the pregnancy looked doomed from the start, despite stupid doctors and nurses refusing to acknowledge that constant spotting at 5 weeks could definitely signal a chemical pregnancy. So for me, the rainbow is less a promise, a trust that I have some kind of deal with a man who controls the universe, and more a sign of remembering and hope. And I think the story fosters that reading as well. I'll see the beautiful sign and I'll remember the terrible storm that preceded it, and I'll always remember that there is always hope after the storm. Hope for something truly beautiful, that actually could only have been created in the wake of the rain.

I'm 15 weeks pregnant today, and sporting a tiny bump that's looking less and less like a thickening. If I were Princess Kate the paparazzi would definitely be in a tizzy with speculation. My breasts are huge--I look like an actress in a Jane Austen adaptation in a corset and empire waisted dress at all times--they are popping out like on a shelf! I'm usually pretty small breasted so this is a weird new development for me (I wear a lot of scarves to cover the cleavage in my lower-cut dresses because I am just not ready for this new body). I hope I'll be able to feel my baby in the next month. I am so, so, so, so grateful and happy to have made it this far. I love my baby so much. I came across this article today that fetuses react to music as early as 16 weeks. How cool! Then I read more than just the headline and it turns out that that was only if there was a vaginal speaker. Eww. No thank you. Perhaps babies ears need to be protected from such stimulation when they're at such a tender developing stage. But still. I know later on they are able to respond to sounds outside my abdomen. I also read that after the baby's born and placed on my chest, I should talk to it right away, and MFP should talk to it too, because it will recognize my voice and his voice. And this could calm our baby down after it's had a shock coming out of my body. I had never thought of that before. So beautiful.

Last week I came across the blog of a mother who just last month lost her son to stillbirth in my city. After reading through a few posts, I also saw that she seems devout and she is very anti-choice, though of course she's filled with much more despair at her own loss right now than anger or resentment towards other women; in fact, she wrote about telling her fellow anti-choice activists to have compassion and listen, though I think she meant to the supposed grief of women who had abortion, not their gratitude for the procedure. I was thinking about how pregnancy loss, I'd guess, can reaffirm the deeply held beliefs someone already has, rather than turn everybody in the same direction on any issue. For everybody, the loss hits them in the context of their own lives, and that's just never going to have the same outcome, even if we have similar griefs.

When I saw my baby on the last ultrasound a few weeks ago, crying and shaking MFP's hand, I told the ultrasound technician that it was the most beautiful sight I had ever seen, seeing that baby-looking body moving and waving, even though I couldn't feel a thing and it wouldn't react at all to the poking of the tech into my abdomen. At that point I was about 12 weeks, and most abortions occur before that point (nine in ten abortions occur in the first trimester, in fact), but still, many women have abortions at or later than I was at that stage of pregnancy. They might only have just figured out they were pregnant--who's really that vigilant about her cycle when she's not on a fertility mission?--or they might only just have finally gathered up the funds and the transportation and all of the other obstacle-overcoming means (that anti-choicers have put up in their way) to have the procedure.

I did, for a moment after the scan was over, ask myself, do I really support abortion when the fetus looks like that, can move like that? To me, the experience was so incredible, so fascinating, it looked like nothing I'd ever seen. Then I remembered: but I want this pregnancy. I feel this way because I want this baby so, so much. Another woman might feel so many different things because of the context of her life. Fear, dread, panic, grief. And I remembered too, that despite what image the technology created, the baby still absolutely 100% needed me, and what if I didn't want to be needed? We were caught in a network of mutuality, and that's what the baby needs to grow: me, on board. It's wrong, to me, to grow a child by force and shame. We have to both be on board for this pregnancy, this life, both of these lives, to work.

I'm so glad I'm working to grow my rainbow. Here's to hope.

Let's talk about sex

I'm now officially OFFICIALLY in the second trimester. News about the chromosomal results helps reassure me that the baby is still likely growing and healthy inside me, even though I can't feel it. I know that still this is largely out of my control, but hey, hope never killed a baby. I bought my first pair of maternity jeans. Thanks to progesterone weight gain, my old jeans were already kind of getting uncomfortable before the pregnancy, so with my "thickening" turning into a teeny bump, I figured why not have something besides yoga pants to be comfortable in on the weekends. Empire waisted dresses and leggings/tights are still getting me through the work week.

I've already had many people ask me if I know the sex. Which is interesting, because the cell-free fetal DNA test we took is still only about 4 years old, and that's the only way (I think) someone could know the sex before an amnio or an anatomy scan, which would both be much later in trimester #2 than I am. We opted not to find out the sex. For now. I'm not dogmatic about much of anything, so we'll just play it by ear as we go. Next scan is the first week of November, when we'll have an opportunity to know then, if we want to. Here are reasons I've heard for learning the sex:

1. It helps people imagine/bond with their child.
2. They'd be just as surprised finding out before the birth than at the birth. 
3. It helps them prepare the nursery, clothing, etc.
4. Other really specific reasons. 

I remember when I first got pregnant, I felt surprised at myself to really want to know the sex because of #1. I wanted to know as much about this kid as possible. As for #2 and #3, those aren't really compelling to me. For me, I don't really care about being "surprised." In fact, I *hate* surprises! And as for #3, that's a reason for me specifically to NOT know. I've been at showers when someone is expecting a girl, and no matter what the mother's proclivities are, or her requests, every single thing in that room ends up pink, from wash cloths to pacifiers. Whatever I have to say about gender conformity and capitalist exploitation (selling gendered baby washcloths is a great way to make sure people have to buy twice as many, rather than using the same ones for boys and girls), and you can guess by now I have a lot to say, basically I just want to look at more than one or two colors around the house. Just aesthetically, it'd be nice to see a mix--in the kid's room, among their toys, on their body, in photos. And if I had a boy or a girl, I would try my damnedest to decorate their room in as gender-neutral a way as possible, because well, girls can be scientists and boys can be nurturing caregivers and all that. As for #4, right now I don't really have any #4.

I do have one reason I'd like to know, though. This great local sewing shop is having a class on girl dress patterns. And while I might buy my son an Elsa dress to play dress up in if he loves "Frozen," as some moms I know have done, I probably won't put him in a dress on a regular basis. Still, how likely am I really to make time for sewing? So not a great reason.

I do, however, have reasons to *not* know, and I don't encounter people articulating these. Like I said, I don't need a "surprise" as a "help" to push at the end. However, I do anticipate having a lot of huge feelings about having a boy or a girl that go right to the core about my own assumptions about gender that after 35 years, no amount of feminism is going to just wipe away. Especially after my experience of my family of origin. Having a boy can be frightening because I relate so much more easily to women--will I relate to my son? And having a girl can be frightening because I might relate too much to her--will I see her as reliving my childhood? And I just think I might be sad one way or the other, since this may be the only child I ever have. Sad that I might never have a boy, or a girl--that I might never get to use my "girl" or "boy" name we have picked out. And I just don't think that thought will cross my mind when (hopefully) my vagina has just been stretched to unimaginable limits and I am holding my child in my arms for the very first time. And there are reasons for that, because when I find out the sex of my child, I'll be only really encountering *my ideas* about what gender means, my imagined implications of that chromosomal factoid, not anything truly revelatory about the *person* my child is. Maybe s/he'll be trans. Maybe s/he'll be small, or big, or quiet, or loud. Right now, all of his or her characteristics are equally important; her or his sex is no more important than the others. All I want to know is how healthy he or she is.

Secondly, I kind of want to challenge myself to think outside the box to attach to my child. To practice loving him or her for who she or he is, for however he or she will reveal him or herself to me, rather than what I want her or him to be. This is kind of abstract, and I would never expect someone else to feel the same way. I just kind of like it. It's like an imagination challenge. Connect with someone without knowing they are a boy or a girl. No, LOVE them. Challenge all the assumptions you have about what a boy will be and what a girl will be. No matter how hard I try, I will still gender the hell out of my child. That's what culture does to us--"it doesn't just make us all alike, it makes us alike in fine detail." I like the idea of lengthening this time for as long as feels comfortable to me and MFP, almost a sacred time, where gender doesn't matter. That's another reason I don't want gendered baby clothes. I like how little babies and children all look pretty much the same. The Puritans didn't even really say "he" or "she"--they used the pronoun "it"--until about age 7 or so, because children didn't really have a gender to them, even if they had gendered names. It seems like a special time, of multicolored onesies and sweaters and overalls and sleeper sacks, when boy/girl does't matter. Such innocence. I want to be ready for that, maybe instead of sewing dresses. I could sew clothes that either a boy or a girl could wear.

And who knows, if I am lucky enough to have a living child #2, I could then reuse all this stuff regardless of their sex! Basically, finding out a child's sex is a really, really personal decision. Some people really want to know. Maybe I will tomorrow! Some people really don't, like I feel today. I respect everyone's decision on this. I wonder if this for me also has to do with the fact that I always put off opening presents as long as possible. It might be a way to avoid intense emotion--even good emotion. That's not so great. But it's what my instinct is. I get that to some people that is weird, just like to me, gender-reveal cakes with screen-printed sonograms on them are *weird*!

Here's hoping that this pregnancy continues on healthy. B'sha'ah tovah to us.