July 15, 1166
Today was Lonriad's seventh birthday. In accordance with tradition, he had received his first sword today.Alina's third son had his first sword. Her youngest son had has first sword. All of her sons were now old enough to have swords.
Seven wasn't that old, she tried to tell herself. It wasn't as though Lonriad was getting married or having a child or anything--he was just getting a sword. And why shouldn't he be getting one? It was his seventh birthday.
Dear God. Her youngest son was already seven. Her youngest child was five. She'd spent the last five years watching all of her friends have babies while she herself cycled with clockwork regularity--and to think, she'd probably had more sex than any one of them in all that time! A child a year for seven years, then five years of monthly bleeding; either some unseen tragedy had rendered either her husband or herself infertile, or her man had an unfortunate talent for pulling out.
Honora was pregnant again. She'd told her the day before, so as to avoid stealing little Lonriad's thunder. As usual, Alina had feigned delight, forced herself to feel happy for her friend for the duration of the visit, only to return home to take out her frustrations on her unsuspecting pillow. Everyone was getting pregnant. Honora was pregnant, Arydath was pregnant, her sister-in-law Eldona was pregnant... Lord, she was so jealous!But why was she jealous? After all--with the exception of poor, sickly Viridis, who was confined to bed far too often to make much mischief--were her children not the worst behaved brood in the whole damn kingdom? Any given one of them was a handful, at best.
And yet, she loved those little monsters, all seven of them. She knew would love an eighth just as much.But why couldn't she have one? She'd wanted another since the last had been born, but she'd kept her silence because Severin had felt otherwise. What the hell did he know? It just wasn't the same for him. Every pregnancy gave her nine blissful, fulfilled months between two empty depressions, the rush of knowing that another life was completely dependent on her own body. A lot of time and care went into a baby on her part, time and care that she was only too happy to give. Severin didn't understand; as far as she knew, it made no difference to him whether he did his part or just went off to some secluded place and used his own hand.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a small set of knuckles against the door. "Mama?" came the voice of her youngest daughter. "Mama, Lonriad's birthday supper's going to be ready in a few minutes. The table's set, and everyone's sitting down."
Sighing, Alina took a minute to regain her composure, then swung her feet to the floorboards and pushed herself from the bed. "I'll be there in a minute, baby."Her baby. Her youngest baby. Her youngest was five years, two months, and four days old. Perhaps she herself was getting old too.
NEXT CHAPTER:
14 comments:
Sorry about the short post. Unfortunately, the next one probably won't be any longer :(
Alina!! Tell somebody (i.e. your husband, who adores you and would do anything to help you) what you're going through! This isn't right and it isn't normal, and while yes, psychotherapy and antidepressants haven't yet been invented, surely somebody could do something to help. Maybe Tavrin if he shoudl happen to drop by to cure Viridis. ;)
And uh oh. What did Ailede do this time?
*sigh* Alina, enough is enough! Five years is too long a time to suffer in silence. Tell your husband what's going on and get it out and over with. I actually think she's being rather selfish. What about Severin's feelings in all of this? And her kids as well. Perhaps they want some time alone with her without having to move aside for the next kid. :(
Morgaine and Phoenix: She really does need to talk to someone about it, but in this day and age, most people would probably take this for a form of "hysteria" :( I doubt that would be the case with Severin, but the brain does weird things when you're depressed.
I wonder if Tavrin could help. I think there is a certain limit to his expertise, but we haven't seen enough of him to know what it is. Hmmm...
I'm not sure I'd say she's being exactly "selfish", or at least intentionally so, but she does need to take the feelings of her husband and kids into consideration here. Severin has a lot of patience where his children are concerned, but we've seen him hit his breaking point a few times before and it ain't pretty... and supposing this eighth kid is just as wild as the others? And the kids probably don't get enough attention individually as it is.
Hmmm... I'm actually wondering right now if this may be a hereditary thing. Her mother had ten kids pretty much one right after the other, much like Alina did with her seven. Perhaps some similar feelings were involved there? And if so, maybe one of her daughters might end up the same way? I can't see it happening to Raia, but Alina's three other daughters haven't had as much character development at this point, so... hmmmmm...
Heheh... I think the better question would be who did Ailede do this time?
I sent a comment but I don't know if it worked. My internet has a mind of its own these days. :\
It might be something with Blogger. I've noticed some delayed comments too lately :S
Ack! And now I must remember what I was saying about Alina and her woes.
It would seem to me that she really only has two choices:
She can suffer in silence, which, I don't know. She seems to be functioning ok while that is the case. Or she could cheat and just tell Severin that maybe he isn't as quick pulling out as he thinks he is.
And it has been quite some time since we saw Ailede. Not that I'm complaining. She is kind of a hot mess.
AAAHH!!! I missed a Florian chapter!!
*goes back to read*
She does seem to be functioning fine, but there's functioning and there's actually enjoying life, which she doesn't seem to be doing just now to any healthy extent.
I'm not sure I can see her cheating. I can't even imagine who she would cheat with. If she were to try to get pregnant with another man, I think she'd be savvy enough to pick someone outside of her and Severin's usual social circle--no "Hey, have you noticed how much that baby looks like Falidor?" comments. The problem is... Alina doesn't get out much. Chances are, anyone she knows, Severin also knows--and so do Laralita, Roderick, Celina, Octavius, etc.
Yeah, we haven't seen Ailede since February of 1163, back when she revealed she was pregnant with her son Lonel O_o But not much has happened to her over the past three years, or at least not much that we couldn't have expected.
Ok, Falidor would be hilarious but only because I could never see those two together.
Man, I'm having a lot of trouble adjusting to Dalston being dead because that was the first man that I thought of. :S
Dalston probably would have been convenient if she'd wanted to cheat. He's her first cousin, so it wouldn't be too suspicious if one of her kids ended up looking like him. Alina and Dalston have quite similar facial features as it is.
But after the whole thing with Geneva, I'm not sure Dalston would have been game for a little rendez-vous with Alina :S
Meanwhile, Falidor does think she's hot... but if it got down to it and she tried to pull a Mrs. Robinson on him, she'd probably scare the hell out of him.
I've been through post partum depression quite recently infact (I have a three month old). The anti-depressents certainly help in today's day.
Everyone is different, but I think what made it worse was a sense of building guilt that I was having...worry that I wasn't a good mom etc. Now Alina doesn't have that problem but keeping her feelings bottled up certainly has to be taking a toll.
And yes, post partum depression is hereditary. My mom had it, my grandma had it - untreated cuz they didn't know what it was even 60 years ago. So yep, didn't come as a surprise when I had to go through it too. :-)
Good luck Alina!
You had PPD? :( I'm sorry to hear that, Keri. I hope you're feeling better now.
Yeah, spent a week in the hospital "funny farm" lol...but after some counseling and some medicine I'm certainly a lot less anxious and depressed. It's nice not feeling so worried all the time. Plus I have a wonderful husband who got on board with the counseling and he's a HUGE support. Dunno if it'll ever go away completely but it's certainly getting better.
Actually your story has been a tool I've been using to feel better. I'm a lot like Celina, I'm super generous and ultra-mothering so I tend to overwhelm myself and not take time out for me. I can't tell people no...so I end up taking on everyone else's problems in addition to my own..go figure.
After I got discharged from the hospital my hubby told me to find something I love and start doing it again. I LOVE the sims, but like you my computer runs really slow cuz of all the custom content I have plugged into it..lol. Anyway I stumbled on your story during a Google search and sorta got hooked. It's been nice escapist reading for me, makes me take time to relax and refocus so that I'm taking care of me a little bit...so thanks!
Well, I'm glad things are looking up for you. Here's hoping it eventually does go away completely.
I'm glad my story has been helpful for you. Wow, I never thought it would ever have such on an effect on anyone. That may just be the greatest compliment a writer can receive. Thank you :D
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