A Tribute

Well, here I am in my 24th week of pregnancy…already! I am still feeling pretty good. I’m not at the stage yet where my belly is gigantic, so day-to-day life is still manageable.

I cannot believe how fast this pregnancy is going by. Compared to last time, this one is whipping by at mach-10 speed. I have a feeling it’s because I have a very active 18 month old girl to contend with. My little Gracie is keeping me busy enough that I seriously forget that I’m pregnant sometimes. However, I can always count on her to graciously remind me by poking my now very noticeable huge boobs and saying “boobie” (the newest addition to her vocabulary) or giving my growing belly a nice hard “love tap” and saying “baby”. Here is a picture of my little rascal along with the belly and myself.

So I have a new symptom to report: Charley horses…..they started a couple of weeks ago. I wake up in the night to find that one of my calf muscles is completely locked up in searing pain. They are so bad that I cannot move my foot at all while they are happening. They are so painful! I remember I had them with Grace near the end of my pregnancy, but don’t recall them being this bad. These are not regular Charley horses; rather, they are like Charley bucking broncos or something! I find it so odd that these are an actual symptom of pregnancy. But really….there are so many odd things that happen to your body during pregnancy that I’m starting to get used to these strange happenings.

So I’ll be taking a year off to be home and look after my new little man and then will be welcoming going back to work next year. From experience, I can surely tell you that going to work is far easier than being at home with a baby (not as rewarding though!). It’s really like being on vacation. During this maternity leave, my little Gracie will continue going to her fantastic babysitters….for her sake and mine. I can’t imagine how bored she would be if she suddenly found herself at home with me and a newborn baby everyday rather than playing with her friends and going to her classes at the YMCA. Also – I can’t imagine how busy I would be with a toddler running around and a newborn wanting to be fed every couple of hours. In other words – I would surely lose my mind and likely have to be committed.

Knowing this makes me think of my mom and my mother-in-law. It makes me want to pay them a little tribute…so here I go:

They have super powers. I am sure of it. Both women stayed home and raised three and four kids respectively (all of which were approximately 18 months apart) without the help of nannies…..and they are both still sane….AND all of their children are sane (at least I think)! But wait for this one……they both used cloth diapers! Not the kind that we throw in a Diaper Genie and never see again….oh no…they scrubbed and washed them! Gross!

They surely did not get the credit they deserve. They took it upon themselves (with a little help from our Dads of course) to raise their children with minimal help everyday…all day! They created happy childhood memories and shaped their children into who they are today….and they did this all while keeping their house clean and cooking healthy meals for their family….while hardly ever getting a “Thanks” and never getting paid for what they do. That is incredible.

You are both amazing women. I am sure that neither of you have heard this enough in your life.

So Mom – Thank you for being so great at what you do. Thank you also for raising me to become the person I am today and being such a great role model. I only hope I will be as great a mother as you are.

To my Mother-in Law, Pam – Thank you for raising Chris to be the man he is today. He is such a great father and husband and you played a big part in this. You did a phenomenal job.

Ok – I don’t know if it’s the pregnancy hormones or what, but I am sitting here tearing up as I write this…so I must stop here. Perhaps in my next blog entry, I can talk about how sappy and emotional this pregnancy is making me.

On that note, I will leave you with this quote I came across that is true beyond words:

“It is when I had my first child that I understood how much my mother loved me.” – Author Unknown

The Realities of the Miracle of Life…

I have been wanting to blog about these thoughts for a while but it’s taken a long time because it brings tears to my eyes…

The Saturday morning mid-January when I found out I was pregnant, I must admit, I did not take the news as well as I had daydreamed I would. I had daydreamt that when I found out I was pregnant, I would jump for joy and scream with excitement, running to tell my husband the exciting news we would happily hug and kiss.

The reality was when the ‘pee wand’ turned very pink very fast with more than one line, I felt like I couldn’t breathe and that the walls were closing in on me. I totally panicked; I wasn’t ready. My husband and I were living by the mantra ‘whatever happens happens’ but I just didn’t expect ‘whatever’ to happen so fast. When I composed myself I went downstairs to tell my husband, tears broke as I said the words aloud and I couldn’t stop crying. Poor guy was so confused, he asked me, “Aren’t you supposed to be happy?” to which I gave him a slobbering, “Yeah I guess so.” I can tell he was very happy but too confused at my reaction to show more excitement. 

It took WEEKS for me to get used to the idea that I was pregnant, even through morning sickness I was somewhat in denial that my life is going to forever change. Even when I told family and friends, a part of me felt dread and I wasn’t as excited as everyone else seemed to be for us.

During my 9th week, I woke up in the middle of the night because I felt an incredible ‘energy of light’ radiating from my pelvis area. If I could see the light, it would have shined up onto the ceiling. It was very spiritual and something I’ve never experienced before, I assume it was the baby’s doing. Then during week 17 or 18, I felt my baby flutter for the first time. At first I thought it was a gas bubble on the move but it happened two or three times in the same area so I again assumed it was the baby. Still, I hadn’t felt particularly connected to my growing belly yet.

Then during my 18th week, a friend told me she’s just found out she’s pregnant after two years of trying and two miscarriages, each one a year apart. I was so excited for her, I felt more excited for her than for myself. She was also the first one to guess I was pregnant at nine weeks before we even told our immediate families. We’ll call her Friend #1.

During my 20th week, Friend #1 now in her 8th week, was concerned of spotting. I told her not to worry, all the baby books said it’s normal. The next day the spotting got worse; she panicked and went to her OB for an emergency check-up. They did an ultrasound and she saw ‘the little peanut’ with a really strong heartbeat. She was even told the baby was most likely safe because the heartbeat was so strong. She was so excited she told everyone that night.

The next evening, another good friend, Friend #2, told me she just found out she’s pregnant after years of trying. Again, I felt more excitement for her than I still felt for myself. Late that same evening, I got a text from Friend #1. She’d been in the hospital all day and night; she had a bad miscarriage. I was overwhelmed by sadness and emotions; it was the first time in my pregnancy hormones totally took over.

I cried for a very long time and didn’t sleep a wink all night. It was also the night I realized how lucky I was to have the baby growing inside of me. It was the night I really fell in love with my baby for the first time and the thought of losing him or her overwhelmed me with such sadness and fear.

During week 21, Friend #1 and I were in New York at a conference. We snuck off to a corner by ourselves overwhelmed by general baby talk. I was amazed at how well she was doing both physically and emotionally; it had only been days since her loss. Then she asked me at what point in my pregnancy did I connect with my baby. It was so hard to say aloud to her, I even thought about lying, but my eyes welled up with tears and I started to softly cry. I said it was the night she told me she had her miscarriage.

I’ve also known someone who miscarried at 12 weeks and was very physically ill from the experience. Having a difficult time to conceive embryos or having a difficult time hanging onto fetus’ is a reality for most women and a topic that is not readily talked about. Perhaps it’s just too difficult and the pain is too private. When I think about the women in my life who’ve gone through this, I now feel guilt and shame for being selfish and denying the fact I was blessed with life versus immediately loving my baby.

Now at 26 weeks, I can’t wait to meet the little munchkin inside of me. To hold and kiss him or her and to tell him or her how much I love them and how lucky I am to have them.