7QT: The Third Trimester Edition

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Believe it or not, even before Simcha stole my thunder, I had been planning on doing a Quick Takes-Pregnancy edition this week. I can prove it. I’ve been writing notes in my calendar all week for it. But if we’re comparing Simcha to me, I need to be honest: mine is not funny. Hers is. If funny’s what you’re after, you need to go read this. (But please come back!)

___2___

I am 27 weeks, and I do have to go look it up on a pregnancy calculator to remember. It’s enough to know I’m in the third trimester. And I’m still running. Sort of. I run to the top of the hill (that’s one block) and then the round ligament pains hit, so I breathe deeply and force myself to walk. In my fourth pregnancy I’ve finally learned that round ligament pains, as much as they hurt, hurt less and go away sooner when you stay vertical.

___3___

Speaking of running, here’s the weird thing. I only have hip pain after I run. Actually the whole pelvic bone hurts all day, and all the muscles attached to it. It makes me want to quit. But I can’t quit exercising, that would just be stupid.

___4___

Anyway…I’ve just done two “takes” without getting to the point. The point is that I’m in THE THIRD TRIMESTER. And I look like this:

Yet people are still afraid to assume I’m pregnant. At a school event late last week, one of the teachers took my arm and chuckled. “People keep asking me if you’re pregnant again!” But that’s only the half of it. My new primary care doctor, a lovely woman whose eyes kept flickering to my midsection, steadfastly refused to ask point blank. Instead, she kept asking oblique questions like “Are you on birth control?” and “Are you having regular periods?” Finally I took mercy on her. Her face cleared immediately. “I never ask!” she said. Come on! I thought. If DOCTORS are hamstrung by fear of offense, what hope is there???? :)

___5___

Interestingly enough, I’ve gotten hardly any of the annoying questions this time around. Maybe everyone’s finally given up on converting us to find-out-and-tell-everyone-the-name-ers. In fact, people aren’t even offering predictions on gender. So I was startled last week at choir when our drummer told me definitively that I was having a girl. Since I had finally just about made up my mind I was having a boy, I threw my hands up in the air and gave myself over to having no idea. After all, really, nobody else knows either. In this picture, if your eyes are eagle-sharp, you’ll see that with Julianna, I had people tell me “You’re having a ____, and I’ve never been wrong.” Obviously one of them now has been. :)

___6___

This munchkin is a CRAZY baby! If the little things give us indications of later personality, I must admit I am beginning to quake in my shoes about the destructive potential about to be unleashed on our already chaotic household!

___7___

I’m really not sure I’m ready for the whole newborn experience again. Even though my heart squeezes at the thought of silky cheeks, it also quakes at the nursing-all-the-time thing. How will I ever keep up with my house full of children who are getting into such trouble??? However, the goals I set for our family are progressing nicely. Nicholas is almost toilet trained—wearing underwear 75% of the time—and talking. Nonstop. Julianna’s toilet trained and making really good attempts at talking—some of them even recognizable. Hurrah! Obedience…that one’s still pretty high maintenance. But hey. I still have twelve weeks. :)

Published in: on September 23, 2011 at 4:42 am  Comments (10)  
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7 Quick Takes, Vol. 142

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It’s been so long since we got to experience it, I forgot how much I love the learning-to-talk stage. Nicholas is just adorable. “It too toe in da pool,” he says at random times during the day. “Tan I tan up? Tan I hop you?” (Can I stand up—on the toilet, he means—and Can I help you. “Tan I teh da ta-el?” (Can I set the table?) It’s also fun because Alex wouldn’t say anything until he could get pretty close, while Nicholas just opens his mouth and says whatever’s on his mind, whether or not he knows how to make the sounds. It sharpens my ears, trying to interpret.

___2___

Of course, it has a down side, too. He’s been cranky and whiny lately, and that translates to unintelligible when he most wants to communicate. And he has a toddler’s stubbornness, too. He finished watching a home movie and asked to watch Thomas the Tank Engine. I told him no, you already watched your movie, and had to put up with a child following me around the kitchen for ten solid minutes, crying, whining and repeating, “Wa…Thoma…moy” (his word for movie). It doesn’t sound like that long, but imagine how many times in a row you can hear that phrase in ten minutes!

___3___

His cutest one, though, took a while to recognize. He kept wanting to open up the pop mower’s “tank” and put grass in it. Finally I realized his lack of an “r” sound makes him not realize there is a difference. “Put…gas…in…won wohr,” he says, and dutifully picks strands of grass from the lawn to drop in his toy. Everybody say “awwww”!

___4___

I can never remember at what point during pregnancy I give up on running and become a walker. So I’m recording in black and white (well, black and tan) that at 25 weeks plus, I am still running, although it’s considerably on the decline. I’m thinking about the 18 pounds I’ve already gained, and the 14 weeks to go, and the 5 pounds I was already over my prepregnancy weight, and the 10 pounds below that that I’d like to get back to. Looking to the post-nursing area.

___5___

The dark side of pregnancy is also beginning to manifest. The hip pain that plagued me last time around is back the last few days. I had hoped my exercise regimen would stave it off, but apparently not. Trying to discern whether PT or massage is the way to go. I was limping yesterday because I couldn’t support my own weight. Yikes.

___6___

We’re changing doctors. The most maddening thing about the process is that asking for recommendations did no good, because not one of the doctors people recommended is accepting patients. So I’ve had to make another switch relatively blind, and hope for the best this time.

___7___

Can’t decide if discretion would be the better part of valor in this case, but seriously, after having it in my head ALL NIGHT LONG, I just need to say: In my personal opinion, every copy of “On This Day O Beautiful Mother” should be burned out of every hymnal in existence. I know it’s a song that has great sentimental value to many, but yikes! “Lisping children”???? And people denigrate contemporary music for saccharine, shallow texts????

(Bracing for incoming! Although really, if Simcha can bash Thomas Kincaid, why can’t I express revulsion for On This Day? Then again, she has a lot more readers than I do. Oh, how I hate controversy.)

7 quick takes sm1 7 Quick Takes Friday (vol. 142)

Published in: on September 9, 2011 at 6:27 am  Comments (6)  
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Me and One Very Active Baby

At nineteen weeks, I get a rare privilege: a trip to the Ob’s office without my children. They are across the river, playing with cousins under the eye of grown-up cousin-once-removed, auntie, and Great-Grandma.

The doctor’s running late, so I pore through the pages of a magazine I’ve been trying to market research but haven’t been able to find a copy of. Then I edit an essay and start working on a presentation I have to give in November.

Soon enough, I’m flat on my back with the Doppler wand pressed to my abdomen. It takes all of two seconds for my slow heartbeat to give way to the rushing shew shew shew shew (shew shew shew…) The baby’s on the move. I smile, because I knew that already from the wide and varied placement of the kicks I’ve been feeling. The doctor chases the baby with the wand, and the heartbeat returns. Only this time, it’s punctuated by sharp, high-pitched points of sound. I figure it’s me moving around, but the doctor’s face quickly spreads into a smile and then a chuckle. He pulls the wand off and shakes his head. “That’s you and one very active baby in there,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard so many kicks.”

“Oh, those were kicks?” I say. (My fourth child, and still I’m in the dark.)

He raises his eyebrows and plunks the wand on my belly again. Shew shew(POP) shew shew shew POP shew POP POP shew shew POP. The doctor counts: “One. Two, three…four…five six…” He pulls the wand off, grinning. “There’s as many movements of the extremities as there are heartbeats!”

Is it unfair to read into my unborn baby’s personality based on this? :)

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Published in: on July 28, 2011 at 5:07 am  Comments (5)  
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Hi, Baby

I wish I had a picture. But there is no way to capture it as I see it: these three beautiful children

gathered around me, on the couch, lounging on my bed while we read bedtime stories, sometimes even in the middle of the kitchen.

“Mommy, I want to pat the baby,” Alex says. “Nicholas, do you want to pat the baby? Julianna, do you want to pat the baby?”

He bends his head over my midsection, puts his lips an inch from it and whispers something I can’t hear, patting the gentle swell of the maternity tops I have to wear only because my regular ones are too short to cover the maternity waistbands. I ruffle the thick richness of his brown curls, cut too short to curl except at the very edges, where tendrils stick out wildly from his forehead and the nape of his neck. Then he sits up. “Nicholas, you want to say night-night to the baby?”

Nicholas crawls forward, and I brace myself. He’s often not gentle. “Nigh-nigh, beebee,” he says, and bangs his hand on my belly a few times. Then he smacks the part of my anatomy that is most tender right now. “Beebee dink milk!” How has he made that connection? I only told him once, when he was insisting on using my chest as a handlebar to clamber up.

Julianna watches the boys with bemusement. I can’t tell how much of this she really “gets.” Nor Nicholas, for that matter. The other day my sister asked if he understood, and I turned to him to say, “Nicholas, where’s the baby?” He proceeded to walk around my parents’ living room looking all around, repeating “Wheah…beebee? Wheah…beebee?”

Julianna comes over and, giggling, performs her ablutions. She thinks they’re nuts, these boys. But I smile whenever I think of her excitement when she sees what’s been in my tummy all these months. After all, she took exception to the idea that anyone else had a right to hold Baby Nicholas…and that was two years ago. She’s crazy about babies.

The moment passes all too quickly. It’s prayer time, hug-and-kiss time, bedtime, play time. But, like Mary, I add it to the treasure trove of memories I hold in my heart to ponder.

 

On In Around button

Published in: on July 21, 2011 at 5:09 am  Comments (4)  
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Heartbeats

Lubbock Heart Hospital, Dec 16-17, 2005

Image by brykmantra via Flickr

The doctor was running late, and the tiny waiting room teemed with children: one mother with four, a couple who’d brought only the baby, and Christian and I, with our three. While the grownups chatted, Alex fidgeted with boredom, annoyed because we weren’t reading to him. Meanwhile, Julianna discovered the babies, and would not leave them alone.

When at last the nurse called me back, Christian decided to keep the little ones in the waiting room—bringing the whole crew into a 6 x 10 examining room seemed a recipe for disaster. But Alex came with me. I had promised him a heartbeat.

The doctor connected with him instantly, and Alex got giggly at the attention. Dr. Dixon pulled out the Doppler and the bottle of gel. “Pretend your mom is a French fry,” he told Alex, and with the loose, warbling laugh my boys get when they’re beyond self-control, Alex obeyed. “Wow!” Dr. Dixon said. “You like a lot of ketchup on your fries, don’t you?”

He placed the wand against my abdomen, and the familiar skritch and whoosh and khkhkhkhkhkh emanated from the small handheld speaker. Then we heard a slow and steady wshew, wshew, wshew, wshew. “That’s my heartbeat,” I told Alex. “You know how I know?”

He shook his head.

“Because it’s too slow, and because I can feel it at the same time that I can hear it.”

Dr. Dixon moved the wand, and I held my breath, listening for the sound we were all waiting for. What if…what if…I told myself I was being stupid. The baby had moved just the day before.

And then, faintly: shew-shew-shew-shew-shew-shew.

I glanced at Alex. “You hear that? It’s not very loud, is it?”

The smile bloomed on his face like a flower captured in time-lapse: slow, but visible. He nodded.

Shew-shew-shew-shew-Shew-Shew-Shew-Shew—” I smiled. “You hear that getting louder? What do you think is happening?”

“He moved it?” Alex suggested, pointing at the wand.

I shook my head. “No, he’s holding it still.”

His eyebrows shot up. “The baby’s moving?”

I nodded, and he giggled.

SHEW SHEW SHEW SHEW Shew Shew shew shew shew…

“The baby’s swimming laps,” I said, as the little one passed out of range. Alex warbled again.

I love sharing these moments with him. I glow in the warmth of knowing what my child thinks of the experience. Being able to see the transformation, watch it sink in and merge into his love of all that is beautiful in the world, his endless fascination with how things work. As I lay there, watching his face, I wondered what impact this moment might have on his future. Will he choose medicine, and point to this moment as the one that first steered him in that direction? Will he immortalize it in a sculpture or painting or song?

More than likely, none of the above will happen. More than likely, this moment will fade into his subconscious, remembered dimly if at all. And yet it will remain part of his experience, part of whomever and whatever he becomes.

And for once, in a parenthood dominated by toddlerhood, I got to participate fully in the moment with him.

Published in: on June 23, 2011 at 5:17 am  Comments (5)  
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Boy, Girl, Spork?

A scrapbook page I made while pregnant with Julianna, featuring a Brevity comic strip

We don’t find out the sex of our babies. I know many other people feel differently, and that’s fine, but I can’t imagine going through the third trimester with no suspenseful anticipation to offset the misery. Not to mention the misery of a spinal, which is, hands down, the worst part about a C-section. (Much worse than recovery, folks. A shot in the back? Ayah!) People who want to know the sex of their babies don’t feel they’re missing out on anticipation, because they’re anticipating holding their baby, seeing him/her for the first time. Well, I anticipate that too. But we all know we’re going to hold our babies soon after they’re born, barring a medical emergency. The only thing we can hold on to for real suspense is gender.

(And we’re not going to tell you names, either, so don’t bother asking. Yes, I am a curmudgeon.)

Sometimes moms know anyway, though. With Alex, I had no earthly idea. But when Julianna came along, I was absolutely certain I was carrying a girl. It was in the constant desire to get gussied up…the perky new haircut I asked for…the makeup that I actually felt like putting on, day after day. On the operating table, when they said, “It’s a girl!” I crowed, “I knew it!”

Likewise, when I was expecting Nicholas, I was equally certain it was a boy–because getting dressed up was such a chore. I spent the entire pregnancy in the slobbiest clothes I own, the clothes I wear on days I’m working outside or cleaning bathrooms. Makeup? Ugh. Hassle. On the way to St. Louis the night before the surgery, we were still negotiating names. We settled on a boy’s name at last and started on the girl. “Whatever,” I said, giving in. “It doesn’t matter anyway, because it’s a boy.”

And now comes number 4. But here’s the thing. Having been through certainty on both fronts, now I spend my days looking for evidence one way or the other. And that opens me up to reading into things and creating patterns that aren’t there. I have to remind myself that just because I think, I’m going to put on a nicer outfit today, because wanting to dress up means I’m having a girl, doesn’t mean I actually wanted to put on a nice outfit.

I don’t remember at what point in past pregnancies these patterns became clear. All I know is that the last two times, it was obvious, and as I finish out the first trimester of this one, it’s not. Am I having a boy because I’m dressing slobby? Or am I dressing slobby because I’ve had sick kids for four days straight, whining and hanging on me from waking up to bedtime, because Christian’s been busy every evening this week? Am I having a girl? Or am I just wanting to have a girl, which causes me to put on makeup at odd, unnecessary times?

<Sigh> the drama. Well, just like the rest of you, I suppose I’ll just have to live in suspense for the next six months or so. :)

 

Published in: on June 16, 2011 at 7:03 am  Comments (4)  
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First Trimester Screening: A Motherhood Moment

Most of the parents I know eschew the first trimester screening. Before Julianna, that was me, too. I was not at any particular risk for having a child with chromosomal abnormality, and what was I going to do with the info, anyway? Besides, I knew the tests often gave false positives.

After Julianna, we decided that it was worth an ultrasound and blood test to put that niggling “what if” doubt out of our minds for the rest of the pregnancy.

I’m now 36 (right? Hang on, let me do the math. Right, 36. Coming up on 37.) So now I am in that so-called risk category. But I still have no expectation of finding anything unusual when I go in for a screening. Well, that’s not entirely true. I have a little pessimist’s streak in me that whispers that I’m going to lose the baby, and I’m going to take my kids with me to look at pictures of the baby, only to find that there’s no heartbeat. But I rolled my eyes at myself, packed up the kids, and trekked over to the hospital clinic.

Here’s how my kids entertain themselves in waiting rooms:

Fourth floor windows overlooking the interstate = Heaven!She had to introduce Jessie to everyone in the waiting room

And then, of course, there’s Miss Munchy:
 

She had to introduce Jessie to everyone in the waiting room

 
Alex did take some pictures in the ultrasound room, but I exercised my mommy rights and deleted them all. Because they made me look bad. Deal with it.
 
However, THIS cutie:

Of course I'm biased, but isn't this the cutest ultrasound you've ever seen?

This little guy/gal doesn’t need any such protection.
 
And following this ultrasound, watching how much moving this baby is doing, let me just say: I HAVE been feeling this baby move for the last two weeks. Even if I WAS only 10 weeks along.
 
One more picture to share, just because it’s so stinking cute:

Jessie needs an ultrasound, too.

Yes, I Have My Hands Full. And I thank God for it.

special needs wordless wednesday

Published in: on June 9, 2011 at 6:21 am  Comments (16)  
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Why I’m Obsessed With Sleep

When you’re pregnant, the standard question of greeting—you know, “How are you?”—takes on a whole new meaning. There’s a different inflection to it. Sometimes it’s even worded differently: “How are you feeling?” I know that people aren’t asking the polite question; they’re asking the polite question about pregnancy. In the first trimester, they’re really asking if I have morning sickness.

Well, it’s hard to say, because I’m sick, and I can’t tell if the blahs are viral or gestational. Lately, my response to the question has been, “Tired. Very tired.”

Sleep and I have never been good friends. Christian goes to sleep in thirty seconds; I lie awake for at least half an hour every single night, and often much longer. I’ve always had trouble getting to sleep—I used to have long conversations with God while staring up at the stars out the north window of the house, or “pretending.” There have been times when irrational panic kept me awake. When I was working full time, I often stayed awake wound up about work—especially after choir practice.

But nothing has screwed up my sleep rhythm as much as parenthood.

Oh, here she goes, you think: off on a “sleeping through the night is a myth” tangent. Well, that’s part of it. But even that would be far less disruptive if I was like my husband, going right back to sleep.

The first major sleep disruption began when Alex was six months old. I was supposed to drive toKansas Cityto pick up my cousin from the airport, and the night before, I simply could not fall asleep. I tossed and turned for hours, getting up to nurse, almost dropping off, getting yanked back from the edge…there’s nothing so torturous as paying attention to the process of falling asleep, let me tell you. At 2:30 in the morning, I still had not slept. At 5, I was in a panic; there was no way I could drive safely. I hadn’t slept even a single minute. The world was a haze of fog. I called my parents crying, and my mom went toKansas Citywith me as a backup driver.

That was early fall. By first frost, it was happening with alarming regularity. I was in a panic. I was overwrought, biting people’s heads off for no reason (in particular Christian’s). I felt so out of control, and so tired all the time. Thank God I only had one child, and him nursing; we would lie down on the bed to nurse, and I’d fall asleep with him, so that mitigated the useless nights. A doctor told me to try Benadryl, but that seemed to intensify the “I’m-tired-can’t-drop-off” effect. At last, they put me on an anti-anxiety med, first for sporadic use, but by late January, a nightly dose.

I don’t remember how long it took for me to clear this phase of my life. It passed, and from it I learned the psychological value of a change of venue. In other words, the couch. For some reason, I could get to sleep on the couch when I couldn’t get to sleep in bed. Something about the way I could mummify myself in the cushions. So I learned not to be heroic; if I was having trouble getting to sleep, I’d just go to the couch and spend the night there. (When we went to replace that couch, you’d better believe this was part of why it took us 6 months to pick one. And we didn’t get rid of the old couch until I’d slept a dozen nights on the new one, and made sure it would do the trick!)

The “aha” moment didn’t come until Julianna was eight or nine months old, and I happened across a tidbit in a magazine, informing me that postpartum depression can pop up any time in the first year, and isn’t always characterized by feelings of sadness. Among the possible symptoms? Sleeplessness. Aaargh! I wanted to take that article and shake it in my doctor’s face.

Kids do still get me up at night. It goes in waves; they’ll sleep through for a while, and then they’ll get up every night for a few weeks. Julianna got me up 7 times in 6 hours a couple of weeks ago. But I was enjoying a refreshing stretch of good sleep…until the day I found out I was pregnant. And now? Well, currently I’m having more trouble with the day starting too early: at 3:50 a.m. I wake up, and I cannot get back to sleep. It’s maddening.

So yes, I’m pregnant. And yes, I’m tired. But if I ever seem obsessed with the subject of sleep, now you know why.

Published in: on May 17, 2011 at 4:50 am  Comments (6)  
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7 Quick Takes

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Alex brought home a sheet of paper this week from school. I have no idea what it was for, but it said:
“In 25 years I will be 31.
I would like to be a
scientist and train driver.
I will get married.”
 
Go for it, boy. :)
 
___2___
 
As I was getting ready for bed last night, I caught sight of myself in the mirror and realized…holy cow, I’m showing already. This news does not excite me. I’m only 8 weeks. As I said to the doctor on Monday, I’m nervous that I outran my grace period with my first three pregnancies, and I’ll be dealing with the swollen fingers and ankles and out-of-control weight gain that others have always dealt with. I wince. I cringe. I shrug, and go on. Eighteen months and I can pursue weight loss for real.
 
___3___
 
I often say that Julianna’s a 2-year-old in a 4-year-old’s body. But I realized last weekend that I’m not giving her credit. Labels like that are handy and succinct, but she’s more emotionally mature than that. She sat in the car the other day pointing to letters and attempting to say their names. For all that her attempts at communication are (usually) limited to grunts and yells, the girl knows how to say “w” and “k” and “g” and several vowels–and she can connect many of them to the letters. It’s just really hard for her to control the fine muscles in lips and tongue to get them out. But for the first time, I see speech on the horizon. And reading.
 
___4___
 
Meanwhile, Nicholas is toilet training. Theoretically. He’s in that annoying stage where they do great sometimes and categorically refuse others. Only “great” is an exaggeration, because he categorically refuses to cooperate with the #2 issue. I’ll just stop there. Let’s just say battle lines are drawn.
 
___5___
 
Oh, yes, speaking of Nicholas. My apologies to all who saw this on FB yesterday: My beautiful cheesecake cooling before I ran upstairs to put a load of laundry in the wash:
 
 And what I found when I came back downstairs with a folded tablecloth in hand:
 
 
___6___

Tomorrow’s my date with destiny (tongue firmly in cheek): the day I sing the Alma Mater on stage with Sheryl Crow. :) Wish me luck. I’ll be fine as long as my voice doesn’t unexpectedly go south (you worry about these things when you get paid to sing!).

___7___

I often think that people’s rules about writing are a sign of lack of creativity.

For instance: Conventional wisdom says you must limit POV characters–but how many books have you read that hop from head to head (between scenes…even within them, though that drives me nuts)? And they work. Like the one I’m reading now: The Forgotten Garden. Magical. I’ve lost count of how many POVs. It’s a lot. And not all of them are major characters–major, yes, they have a purpose the story would falter without. But major, as in they are developed and someone we’re supposed to empathize with, have a character arc for? No. And yet it needs to be in their POV for the author’s purpose–and it works.

I may just have to thumb my nose at the rules. But maybe I should get published first. :)
 
 Have a great weekend!
 

7 quick takes sm1 7 Quick Takes Friday (vol. 126)

 
 
Published in: on May 13, 2011 at 5:13 am  Comments (6)  
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Introducing…a blob

Introducing Baby Basi #4, due December 21st, 2011

Christian tells me I’m incapable of keeping a secret. There’s some truth to that, I fear. As I have said before, I, like everyone in my family, am an emotional exhibitionist.

So it must have given Christian some satisfaction last night about 9:30 to be the first one to make the announcement (however obliquely) on Facebook:

“Kate just brought me home a picture of a blob. Not sure what to make of it.”

It took about five minutes for somebody to catch on:

“a blob??????? like a #4 blob????”

I suppose that this statement requires a bit of explanation; it must seem shocking to the uninitiated. My husband is not a baby person (and that’s okay!) He cannot comprehend that babies are cute—not yours, not ours, not anybody’s. “Every baby looks exactly the same,” he said when Alex was tiny. “They’re all blobs.”

Our new-parent friends thought this was so hilarious that over the years, “blob” has become a catch phrase in conversations. It was fun to see that a friend who’s been away for a number of years still “got” it.

Poor Baby #4. It seems so unfair. The delirium of announcing pregnancies 1 and 2 had faded by #3, but we still got lots of enthusiasm from friends and family members. The announcement of #4 warrants only, “Oh, again? Okay. How bout them Cards, anyway?”

My favorite reaction so far was my 95-year-old grandmother, who thinks both my mother and I try to do too much. I called her on Mother’s Day. “Hi, Grandma, it’s Kate.”

“I know who I’m talking to, I just never see you anymore!” she said.

Oh, dear. “I’m so sorry, Grandma, I know I haven’t been to see you in a while…”

“No, no, no, you got too much on your plate as it is! Don’t you worry about me!”

I turned to Christian and shook my head. “I’m gonna get yelled at,” I whispered, and turned back to the phone. “Grandma, I have some news. We’re having another baby.”

A beat of silence. A sigh. “Oh, dear.”

I have approached the fourth child with a certain trepidation. Seeking a fourth pregnancy was an act of will, of faith. There have been many times when I just wanted to be done already: out of diapers (those prefolds are getting so worn now, after three kids!), out of tantrums, out of the preschool years. It made me realize that I am not a toddler mom.

But at the same time, I know the beauty of large families—I grew up around them. I know that focusing long-term is a much better policy than saying no to more kids just because I’m sick and tired of toilet training in the present. (And let me tell you, I am sick and tired of toilet training!)

But despite my ambivalence, I am still excited about this child. And knowing it to be very likely my last pregnancy, I am determined to be present in it. To pay attention, to notice the changes as they arrive, not to skitter through it only half paying attention, and then not remember what it felt like to be so connected to another human being.

Published in: on May 10, 2011 at 7:34 am  Comments (28)  
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