Georg stared blankly at Maria, then laughed softly, taking one of her hands in his to rest motionless on her stomach and nuzzling her hair at the same time. “Ho, ho, Fräulein, I think we’re both partly responsible for this certain misdemeanor. And you don’t fool me a bit—you’re just my beautiful, lovable tease. You can’t be as apprehensive as you say; you have seven children already.”

At his words, Maria half-smiled, but sighed and disentangled herself from his arms and stood up to go look out the window. She folded her arms across her chest, staring out into the snow-covered wonderland, and slowly shook her head. “Motherhood seems to be instinctual for me, Georg, and I couldn’t want something more than I want this baby, our love in the flesh, but I don’t think I’ve been more frightened of what’s to come in such a long time. Yes, we already have seven children, children whom I love dearly and with all of my heart. But this is different; this is my own baby, a child that I’m giving life to and will give birth to soon.” She turned to her husband. “Surely you remember Agathe’s qualms, her apprehension, and the pain she had to bear? I’m dealing with it too, love.”'

First of all, I have no idea what the hell I was aiming for here, especially considering what this fic has turned into... but, yes... it was the very first version of Qualms, Kapitel eins, written back in January 2009. My overall impression of the beginning, I suppose, is something warm, slightly fluffy, cute... and true to life. Having a kid is scary shit, as well as a joyful phenomenon... something I think a lot of fanfic writers overlook -- pregnancy is very much a curse as it is a blessing. As the reader, I am curious as to what will happen next (I never got that far, thank God...), since somehow there seems to be an underlying sense of foreboding, as if the world they are in is too good to be true. Will it be overturned? I don't know. Also, what is of the other seven children? There are no directives yet as to their age, their doings, et cetera. Apart from the fact that I think I had no actual direction going (damn me) when I started this, I can see it as an eye-catcher, elements to soften things that might come later. Moving on...

Nummer Zwei:
[Qualms: Draft 2] 'The bustling, busy streets of New York were never quiet, it seemed. There were towering, deserted buildings that became lost amongst smokestacks, there were bright, fancy stores filled with eager shoppers in the cold weather right before Christmas, hurrying to finish all of their shopping before family all seemed to swarm in on them from every direction. New York City truly was the city of no sleep, of no stillness, and it possessed an intriguing quaintness that surrounded it at every turn, no matter if it was the old, worn-down slums or the always-busy and beautiful Broadway sector of the town. New York City was something Liesl von Trapp could have never dreamt of, even in her wildest of dreams. Of that she was sure.

Riding through the area of the town that teemed with the poorest of people living in the enchanting microcosm, streets lined with open market stands of fresh fruit and vegetables, the seventeen-year-old’s eyes were wide, and a small smile was on her young face as she took everything in. There were boys playing in the streets, shouting and kicking a ball. Every one of them was dressed in tatters and covered with at least a thin layer of soot, but they all seemed to enjoy each other’s company.

Rounding a corner suddenly, there was an awful, bone-jarring lurch as the old pickup that Liesl and her six siblings rode in hit the high curb and continued to roll along it. None of them said a word; it had happened continuously over the last hour. Kurt rubbed the back of his head with a slight pout, and Gretl was sitting in Brigitta’s lap, pale-faced and tired. Marta, Friedrich, and Louisa sat dejectedly against the back of the cab, heads repeatedly bouncing against it. It was hard to see their parents, who rode in the cab with the driver, but Liesl could see the outline of her father’s arm resting around her mother’s shoulders. She knew it was in more of an attempt to make do of the small space, but it looked romantic and loving all the same.

Glancing around again, Liesl saw that they were now riding in a quiet, broken-down neighborhood. The houses were built of brick, some of them slowly crumbling and windows smashed in, victims of vandalism. The truck stopped at the end of the long stretch, engine dying down in front of a dilapidated old apothecary. It had an old-fashioned air to it, and it looked as if the upstairs was comprised of living quarters. Climbing out of the small, rusty Ford pickup, with her siblings following and instinctively crowding around their mother, who was staring up at the place with a determined gleam in her eye, Liesl realized that this would be their home, perhaps for a long while.'

No, seriously. I win. End of discussion.

Yeahhhh. Um. OKAY. Here's the deal: I doubt I'll be doing much personal spatting over the next three to four months. Amy has demanded that my first draft of Qualms be finished by New Year's day... 2010. That gives me a measly 110 days to get my act together on this project. Frankly, I don't know if I can do it. It's so extensive. I'm going to start by breaking it down into four or five definitive parts and outline each section explicitly. As always, things are subject to change, and if you're a reader of mine, I recommend you stop reading this entry right now.

More later… as it comes to me.

I'm watching Follow the Stars Home on Hallmark right now, and I just don't know quite what to say about it. It's so touching, to the point where all I can do is just sit and watch it, emotions swirling in my mind -- I guess ones that come directly from the depths of my heart, ones that I feel very intensely if provoked which are so strong and raw that it's almost embarrassing to even bother trying to explain it. It's my maternal instincts towards children.

Part of this story's plot revolves around a young woman whose husband can't deal with the fact that even though their unborn baby has serious spinal and nerve damage, she wants to keep the baby, and refuses outright to terminate the pregnancy. The other half surrounds a girl of about twelve that lives in a troubled, unstable home. Her father died when she was small, and her mother has since started wasting her life away and is currently involved in an abusive relationship. The girl works at Diane's brother-in-law's practice after school and during the summers, and he manages to hook them up so that Amy starts working as a mother's helper for Diane.

By now Julia is around six or seven years old, maybe a little older, and she is unable to walk, coordinate her upper motor skills, and has a speech impairment. Part of what's wrenching my heart out is that there are people in the world that would have terminated a pregnancy that promised a baby with Julia's disabilities because it "wouldn't be fair to the baby" or the baby isn't a perfect one. An inconvenience, a burden.

I know children like Julia. People thought for a long time that I would be like her. I'm not, but I wasn't given bright prospects. The children I know that have such physically impairing disabilities are not miserable children, or grown people. They are the ones that always have a smile on their faces. They are a constant blessing -- to parents, to family friends, to siblings -- to someone. In Julia's case, the person she touched was Amy, and she strengthened her mother in ways that are amazing. She is surrounded by her mother, grandmother, best friend, and uncle -- so very, very special. And so loved. To Amy, Julia is the only happy, special thing about her life.

I don't understand, it hurts me, and it makes me angry that anyone could dare abort their child. I know full well that some people are just lowly cowards. Some people don't think they can handle it -- but that is not in their hands. Every child created has a purpose in their life. It is not up to us to determine that child's worth, that child's purpose. That is God's. He doesn't create what isn't perfect in His sight. What the hell gives us, as stupid human beings, the right to dictate whether a child still in the womb is worthy of life? The answer is absolutely nothing. If a baby is born having swallowed enough amniotic fluid that it could die within the hour, don't doctors try their damndest to save that child's life? How is an unborn child any different, how? Is there like, some magic moment when the baby is passing through the cervix that makes it human instead of a scientific, highly developed ball of cells called a fucking fetus? Any doctor who tries to refer to my child by such shit names has another thing coming to him.

Had the circumstances of my life been different, had I had a different mother, or even different grandparents, it's a very possible thing that I may not have made it past a certain stage of development. Yes, my disabilities are a result of premature birth. But it could have been different. Thank God it wasn't. I don't have a miserable existance. I love my life, and I have so much to look forward to. I have overcome so many odds, all through love.

No matter who a baby's parents are, and no matter who he end up with, he is a blessing to someone, somewhere.  How could anyone take such joy and peace from someone who needs it? Is the value of human life so low? Everyone deserves the equal chance at life.

"Qualms," the story of the von Trapp family from its new beginnings, explores the lives of the von Trapps as they seek to find a new life in the midst of a changing world.

Maria Rainer never thought her life would extend beyond the walls of Nonnberg Abbey, but finds out that life has an entirely different adventure in store for her, and willingly, though warily, she follows. Her choice to return to the family she ran from leads to the best moments of her life, and yet, as it has always seemed for her, disaster follows right on her heels.

When Captain Georg von Trapp is commissioned to work in the naval forces of Hitler's infamous Third Reich, the family escapes to Italy, with intentions of moving on to Britain, but plans are constantly thwarted...

Finally, it seems as though the family can slip away, under the cover of night and a few aliases, but with every intention of keeping the family together, everything begins to go awry.

Alone in London, the recipient of Luftwaffe bombings, the von Trapp family faces much hostility for their nationality, native tongue, and seeming inability to adapt to a new culture.
Without her husband beside her and a growing family to care for, Maria bravely spearheads the job of once again being her children's masthead, but this time with the added determination of contributing to the Allied war effort, providing for the family, and locating her husband.

When conditions in England worsen, the decision is made to move on to America, but what cost does this war demand of the family, and will it ultimately bring them closer, or drive them apart?

There comes a point where everyone hits the top of the top in stress levels and it begins to affect everything you have to get done in your life in a very negative way. I’ve hit that. And I’m not pleased at all. Three weeks are left of my school year, and I’m more at my wit’s end with school work than I have ever been in my life. I don’t know what to do with myself anymore, quite frankly. For the past few weeks I’ve barely been online for anything, and it’s going to continue to be that way. My grades have been affected by all this crap, and I just want it all to relent for a fucking hour, please. But no…

Whoever told me sophomore year is the hardest year of high school certainly had that right. Whoever said that your high school years are the best of your life needs to just go to hell, damn it. I don’t know how wrong that could ever be. Here I am, a 4.0 GPA Honors student and I’m struggling to keep my head above water. Not only that, but I’ve got the added stress of a college class this summer, which I told my father I didn’t want to do this year. Did he listen? No.

My God, I do have a fucking breaking point here, and I’m well beyond it! Therefore, I do not appreciate getting told that I’m screwed for PSEO math classes if I don’t bring my C in Algebra up. I know I can’t have a C in any given subject. I know I’m struggling right now, and I have been telling Dad this. It’s not like I’m just blindly going about life, oblivious to borderline grades and not communicating any of it.

I’m also extremely pissed about my Spanish grade. No. correction. I’m pissed with the damn class. I’m pissed with the lousy teacher. I’m just pissed with the damn language. First of all, explaining how damn reflexives work would heighten comprehension levels for the entire class by a million. And also going over all the verb tenses with us at least once a week would be really nice, because now I’m just completely clueless as to when to use the preterite, imperfect, and present perfect tenses. I hate that. I just absolutely hate it. I can conjugate everything, but actually using it is slipping out of my grasp more and more by the day. God dammit.

Damn, damn, damn, damn!

I am so ready to get out of this hellhouse.

In the meantime, now that I’ve vented my current issues… I’m making the most of my remaining three weeks of classes. If my Algebra grade isn’t up to at least an 80% by Thursday or Friday, I’m going to have a chit chat with Seufer about getting it there, and keeping it there or higher. As far as Spanish goes, I think only self-help is going to get my grade back to a steady A. I have a huge list of verbs that I’m going to memorize, and Jerra found this amazing website that helps you out with all this Spanish grammar. I think I might actually get the whole reflexive thing now. And I’m going to go through the chapter and do all the exercises on paper—part of my grade issue is that I’m not exactly participating.

Considering what an issue Spanish is, it’s a miracle that I still do well on tests and oral exams… go figure.

And my last ditch attempt with Spanish is… Exam. Muahahaha. Even if I have a B for this quarter, if I get an A on the exam (and I know I will), my final grade will still be an A.

Not so sure about Algebra. :/ I routinely average a C on math and science exams. Hopefully I can turn that around, but ugh. Math and science just ain’t my thing.

Okay, I think I’m done whining. Now, to accomplish those goals…

I’m beginning to think it’s rather sad that I’ll have an A in Chemistry at the end of the quarter but Algebra is killing me. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? O_o

Georg entered the kitchen whistling, and smiled when he saw his wife over at the far counter next to the stove, sticking a finger laden with cookie dough into her mouth and savouring it with a light smile. He went to stand behind her, placing his hands on her hips, and promptly nibbled on her ear. “You taste better than chocolate chip cookie dough any day, Maria,” he murmured.

She gave a low sound of appreciation and stuck another of her fingers into his mouth. “For that, you get more than anyone else.”  She turned around with a wicked sparkle in her eye and kissed him on the lips, taking care not to grab onto him with her sticky fingers. The taste of the kiss was delightful, at least in her opinion, a mixture of her husband’s unique taste, cookie dough, and the chocolate still melting in his mouth. “Mmm, delicious,” she sighed as she turned back to her task.

Laughing to himself as Maria continued spooning cookie dough onto the tray in front of her, Georg peered into the bowl and asked, “Theoretically, my dear, how many cookies was that supposed to make?”

“Theoretically,” Maria answered, plopping a glob down on the tray, “I should have about four dozen. But by the time Liesl, Friedrich, Louisa, Brigitta, Marta, and Gretl have been through the kitchen three times and Kurt about ten, in addition to your three, in actuality, I have around a dozen or less.”

Georg chuckled, giving her a one-armed hug. “Why does that not surprise me? Dare I ask how many times you’ve had a lick or two?”

Gleam still in her eye and a smile tugging at her lips again, Maria scooped more dough onto her finger and fed it to her husband again. “Some for you,” she said softly, “some for me”—she licked some off her wrist—“and some for baby,” she finished, giving herself a spoonful of it and then tossing the utensil in the sink to be replaced by a clean one.  “There,” she stated, hands on her hips, laughter in her every word. “If you do the math, I’ve probably eaten more than my share of the cookie dough if you consider how many times each of the children has come through and then my husband, who says he wants a kiss but is really just searching for handouts.”

“And then some,” Georg murmured, staring into her eyes. Maria scrutinized his softened gaze, wiped her hands on her apron, and reached for her husband’s hand, placing it on her slightly bulging stomach, where a foot or elbow could be felt pushing against the wall of her own body. He smiled at the tiny motion beneath his hand and said quietly, “You are a glutton for punishment, Maria. Our baby clearly has a case of hyperactivity due to all that sugar. You won’t be getting much sleep tonight.”

Gaze smouldering, Maria answered, “Perhaps not,” and then lost herself in yet another kiss, arms wrapped tight around Georg’s neck as his hold on her hips swayed them together in a gentle motion, their absorption with each other making clear just how inseparable one was from the other.

Watching quietly from the doorway, Brigitta smiled as Maria leaned her forehead against Georg’s chin and the space between their chests and chins formed the heart that always characterized their tender embraces.