We had another appointment with the midwife Tuesday. I really appreciate how much she puts me at ease. I've had a very hard time communicating to anyone how much pain I'm having. The only person who seemed to "get it" was my friend Camille. While working on my trigger points, she said, "Melissa, your sensitivity levels are up there with those of a fibromyalgia patient." So when Jackie told me that her second was like this and described the pain as being, "like the bones of your pelvis are rubbing together," it really helped me to be confident that this pain, awful as it seems, is not the harbinger of doom that I fear. She even said out loud what I'd said to Mark just a couple of nights before: "The pain was so awful that I was afraid I wouldn't be able to handle the birth." And then she reassured me, "but the birth was just fine. We were fine."

I bought a maternity support belt while there, and I'm surprised by how much it helps. Not much for the fashion statement, but I can walk without wincing now.

Our baby boy is 25 weeks old now. I try to imagine his little fingernails, his eyelids fluttering open for the first time, and the fat beginning to fill out his skin. I wonder whether his lips will be shapely, like mine, or round like Mark's. Either way, they'll be full. Mark and I both have big lips. He spends the morning stretching and rolling, and the best I can figure, trying to divebomb my cervix. I feel a ridiculous amount of movement extremely low in my pelvis. It's like he keeps his hands over his head and bounces on them.

As far as I know, I have only three weeks of employment remaining. My company continues to hunt out work for me; I can only pray we are able to find it successfully. Mark's employment has not come through yet; however, he fully expects that it will. So we continue to hold.

We had a death in the family this week. My father's wife, Gail, is a delightful lady who really has worked hard to have a loving, real relationship with her adult stepchildren. We're so lucky that Dad married such an open, ingratiating, loving woman. Unfortunately, her stepfather, Albert, passed away this week. He had Alzheimers and had been living with Gail and my father for the past couple of years. Dad said that Albert had just come home from visiting his children in Dallas for his birthday. He'd been to see the rodeo and spent time with his great-grandkids. Dad said that when he came home, he was sitting at the dinner table talking about going back to Houston and getting back to work.

Suddenly he went catatonic and unresponsive at the table. They called for an ambulance. Dad said that Albert revived once, briefly, and Gail was able to say goodbye to him. Then he went out again as the ambulance arrived. A scan revealed massive hemmorhaging on both sides of his brain; they pulled life support that night, and he passed within about 10 minutes.

I did not know Albert very well at all. Gail and Dad have been married about twelve years now, and it's possible Albert already had Alzheimers when I met him. He was a sweet old man for all the exposure I had to him, and my heart goes out to Gail, who is occupying her mind and heart with funeral arrangements, schedules, lodging for family members who are traveling to Houston for the funeral, and so on. I hope she's able to cope well when the chaos and business of the funeral and burial have passed and she's left with time and quiet on the long drive back to Mississippi.

Pray for her, if you think about it. I think Dad will be fine. Ultimately, Gail will be, too. But my heart goes out to her.