A requiem for jeans

I can officially no longer comfortably button my normal jeans. It's always a time of mourning for me. I am not one of those women who go all glowy and ecstatic when they're pregnant--oh, no. Pregnancy, other than the child that is the (hopefully) ultimate outcome, is kind of inconvenient and annoying. I spend most of my pregnant days feeling like an alien pod--all sorts of weird things going on inside of me I have no control over.

When I'm being honest with myself, I'm a serious control freak, and pregnancy is the ultimate smack in the face to all things controllable. You have no control over whether the pregnancy is viable. No control over the health or sex of the child. No control over the way your body grows and changes, no control over the nausea or the heartburn or the constant need to eat, eat, eat...No control. We pretend that we do, working magic with science and chemicals and screening and testing, but so much is beyond our grasp. It's 9 months of uncertainty, followed by a lifetime more as you watch that child grow.

But philosophizing aside, I cannot intellectualize away my sadness over my too-tight jeans. I love them. They fit just right. They (were) comfy. But as of Monday night, it could not be denied: I tried to soldier on as if nothing had happened, as if I could just deny its reality, but after 5 minutes of feeling like a stuffed sausage I heaved a huge sigh, left my pants unbuttoned, and pulled out my Bella Band, which is very handy for all those awkward in-between stages of pregnancy when you can't quite button things completely, or when your tummy gets to the point where it rudely pops out of the bottom of every top you wear.

I haven't quite succumbed to maternity jeans yet, although I see them looming directly in front of me. Any day now. I'm learning that by the time you hit pregnancy #3, your body just sort of immediately assumes the maternity position, and you start looking about 4 months pregnant when you're around, oh, 9 weeks. Sad but true.

When I get too obsessed and self-pitying with all of it, I remind myself of what really matters:

1. I'm healthy.
2. The baby's healthy.
3. My body's doing everything it's supposed to do.
4. The most I have is an illusion of control over everything, anyway.

Still, I will miss my jeans, and hope they're waiting for me post-pregnancy.

A Little Perspective

Since starting all this blog stuff I have come to realize that trying to blog everyday is hard, unless someone is paying you to do it. Or you have no kids, an overactive fantasy life and live with your parents in the basement. Or at the very least, manage to get 8 hours of sleep a night. Since I am unpaid, have a houseful of kids and haven't gotten 8 hours of sleep since before son #1 was born, I am a very bad blogger. But it is 2008, a new year, new resolutions: to blog more regularly. To, maybe, actually blog ANYTHING on this particular blog at all.

In fact, being the sacrificial person I am, the kind of writer who will do anything for her 1 or 2 faithful readers (I am an eternal optimist, aren't I?) I have to decided to sacrifice my dignity, my sanity, my health, my very body itself in order to have something to write about on this blog.

In other words, folks, if things go well and God wills, I'm having another baby.

Yup, that's right! I'm 8 weeks along, due in the beginning of August. And if there's anything I come into this pregnancy with that I didn't have before, it's perspective. With Baby #1, it was all anxiety and excitement and the Great Unknown. With #2, it was anxiety that I would carry the pregnancy, that the new baby would be accepted by his brother, how our family would change when #2 arrived. With #3, I've zenned out, people. I'm just brimming over with perspective.

See, with #1 I learned that having a baby blows your whole world apart, but it a weirdly good way. I learned you can survive on very little sleep. I learned about a whole new level of loving someone that still takes my breath away when I think about it. I learned my husband is a fantastic dad. I learned I was nowhere near as bad a mother as I feared I would be. I learned that having a child is one of the coolest experiences in the universe. I learned that labor HURTS. I learned that you can survive 4 months of throwing up, even if you don't think you will at the time. I learned that there is this very tender spot at the bottom of your ribs that a baby's foot will kick the fool out of in order to occupy itself in the last 2 months of pregnancy. I learned not to be alarmed when my stomach rippled and moved like a scene out of Alien in the third trimester. I learned that there is no such thing as a perfect labor, and there's no sense having a dream of what labor is supposed to be because all sorts of unexpected things can and will happen, and you just have to go with it.

With #2, I learned that anxiety is a waste of time, because you can do everything right and still lose a pregnancy for reasons no one understands (I lost 2 before Sam decided to stick around). I learned that when you get pregnant at 37 you are treated by kid gloves by doctors and specialists who treat over-35 pregnancies like they are freakishly rare events, not everyday occurrences. This will lead to you feeling fat and ancient as the pregnancy progresses. I learned that all the anxiety about whether you will love your second child as much as your first is probably the stupidest worry you could possibly have, and you will realize this about a nanosecond after the baby is placed in your arms. I learned that it is never a good idea to eat lentil soup in the first trimester of pregnancy, and that if one is so foolish as to do so, one should always carry plastic bags in the car with them for the inevitable consequences of such foolishness. I learned that while doctors recommend ginger, lemon, and soda crackers for morning sickness relief, the only thing that worked for me was nasty, greasy fast food covered in salt. I learned that having 2 kids will blow your whole world apart again, in both good and bad ways. I learned that the heart is infinitely elastic, bending and breaking and making room for each new life with surprising fluidity. I learned that you have very little control over anything, really, and the best you can do is pray constantly and love fiercely and hope against hope it is enough.

With #3, there aren't a lot of roads I haven't traveled. I know this is uncertain. I know I could lose this child like I've lost others, although the prognosis so far is good, and the 6-week sonogram showed a little peanut growing inside me with a strong heartbeat. I know that the nausea will pass, and until then there's Wendy's, McDonald's, ice-cold Coke and Preggie Pops to ease my woes. I know this child will break my world apart again, and will be like nothing I expected. I know to take my vitamins. I know God cares about something as small and as huge as this baby, and knows all the fears and hopes and concerns I dare not speak aloud to anyone, except to myself in the middle of the night. There is a calmness born of joy and grief I have not experienced before, and it's kind of nice.

So from the beginning to wherever the end leads, come along for the ride. It's sure to be interesting. And please leave any and all lentil soup at home--at least until the first trimester is over.

Thanks.

Hello, all you moms and wannabe moms out there!

(I know there are wannabe moms out there, because you--newly pregnant, or about to become pregnant, are madly Googling anything to do with mommyness and babies because that's all you can think about these days. In fact, that's probably most of my audience. Already-there moms are so busy or tired they are just bookmarking this site to look at it when they have time--in about 18 years or so.)

This site is for you. For me. I'm trying to create a space that I desperately went looking for when I had my first baby in 2003, and couldn't find. Over the years, through word-of-mouth and exhaustive research I've garnered some good stuff, and I'd like to get it all collected into one place--here!

This is also a place where I'll be posting my own highly opinionated ramblings on parenting, as well as occasional cute stuff from my kids--but I'll do my best to keep that to a minimum because I know that can get REALLY annoying if the kids are not your own adorable angels.

My focus will be heavily toward babies and preschoolers, because that's what I currently have--an almost-4-year-old and a 7 month old. Both boys.

It will feature a lot of links to cool stuff, since I do most of my shopping for the boys online--who has time to schlep kids to a store?! Seriously. I tell my husband trying to shop in a real store with the boys is like trying to hike with 2 25-pound weights strapped to your legs. It can be done, but you probably won't get the whole hike done and you'll be totally worn out for the rest of the day. I'll let you in on my favorite online stores, secrets of online shopping (God bless tabbed browsing, the ultimate boon to comparison shoppers everywhere!!), the occasional recipe I can actually get my very picky preschooler to eat, and articles to stimulate conversation.

Any and all comments from the peanut gallery are most welcome. My only rule is that any commenters remember we are all in this mommy thing together, and--unless we're sociopaths or otherwise seriously disturbed--we ultimately want the best for out kids, even if my best is completely the opposite of your best. So no "if you let your kids watch a second of TV you are going straight to Hell and your kids will be juvenile delinquents" posts, please. Life's just waaaay too short for that kind of judgmentalism.

And for all you wannabe moms out there, the best advice I can give you is...REST. Trust me--you'll find out what I mean soon enough.