Category: Parenthood

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Now I know how different a parent’s worry really is

“Stop worrying about me.”

Or, “Don’t worry so much.”

How many times have you said that to your mom over the years? Probably about eleventy billion. And how often did she reply, “I can’t”? I’m guessing about 100% of the time.

Now I know why.

Even though she’s only 8.5 months old, not a day goes by that I don’t worry about D.

And I don’t mean your run-of-the-mill piddly little worries that would make me a wildly stressed-out, obsessive, over-protective mom (which is pretty surprising, actually, since i really like to be in control of certain situations. i’ve turned out to be pretty laid back about this whole child-rearing thing after all. who’da thunk it?). Like I don’t get all worked up if D tips over and bumps her head (obviously as long as it’s not a life-threatening gash) or starts chewing on a piece of paper and accidentally swallows some. Eh, no big deal.

I’m talking big lifetime worries. Like how do I know if I’m raising her well? Will I be able to instill in her the values that I think she’ll need to be a good person? Will we be good enough parents to raise her to be a strong, smart, independent woman, with a good head on her shoulders? How do I make sure she has a solid foundation off which to grow the rest of her life? How do I keep from turning her into one of the specimens you see on Intervention or COPS or Girls Gone Wild?Will I be able to prevent her from being one of those snotty, bratty, disrespectful, obnoxious kids you see constantly fighting with their parents in public and who you just want to slap silly? Do I have the strength to not screw up royally along the way somewhere and break my child (emotionally and mentally, not physically. i’m pretty sure i would never crack a bone in her body)?

See what I mean?

She is so pure and innocent and beautiful and happy and full of wonder and curiosity right now. Every time I look at her or watch her playing with R or listen to her talking to her toys, my heart just swells with love and pride that we actually made that ridiculously awesome little person.

My absolute worst nightmare is that I do something that extinguishes that amazing little spirit in her and she turns out to be a lost, mad, unhappy person who hates her mom. I really don’t know what I would do to cause such a transformation, and I hope and pray every day that I never find out. But knowing that I am now fully responsible for molding this little person and shaping her future fills me with worries like this that I’m pretty certain will never subside.

And I’ve realized that I just can’t help it. I don’t sit and stew over these things every waking minute, mind you, but such thoughts do dance in and out of my mind a couple times a day.

And maybe that’s a good thing? Maybe it would be bad if I didn’t worry about her like this. Maybe it’s just showing how much I love her and want to always protect her and be there for her however she needs. Maybe.

And these worries are SO much different than any others I’ve ever had, no matter how important I thought those were at the time. Like what college am I going to go to, what kind of career path do I want to take, where do I want to live? Granted those are all pretty big life decisions, but raising a kid? Trumps them all, hands down.

Just last night, D was scooting around the house following me (which is super freaking hilarious, btw), and she got to our bedroom doorway. Just inside that doorway is the door to our laundry chute (well it’s not really a chute, more just a hole that opens straight to the basement and laundry basket below), which currently has no door on it since it was ripped off to redo the room and has yet to be replaced. She didn’t go near it, but I instantly thought oh my god, what if she fell head-first through that hole and splatted on the hard concrete basement floor?? I’d die.

That last one falls more in the head-bumping or paper-eating category than the screwing-her-up-for-life category, but you feel me. A mother’s worry truly is never-ending. But you know what? I wouldn’t trade this for anything in the world.

<3

 

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Back in business

Damn, it feels good to be a gangsta. No, not really. But I was going to put “Ahh, it feels good to be back” to start this post, and then the Geto Boys lyrics popped into my head instead. 🙂

It does feel good, though, to have my new theme all sorted out. Kind of like being *home*. My old one just felt too sparse and blah, so I love the splashes of color and little extras I can do with this one. I am pretty proud of myself for figuring out how to manipulate the website code to change things, too. Last night when I was showing R the header I created and how I’d taught myself to change icons and stuff, he kept saying, “Oh that’s easy.” Well, yeah, duh, when you’re a web/computer genius, but to us laypeople looking at code is like looking at Mandarin Chinese – a whole bunch of random letters and symbols that don’t make any sense whatsoever. So I’ll just continue to pat myself on the back thankyouverymuch. 🙂

So this post is just gonna be about a whole bunch of random things, because all the stuff I have floating around in my head this morning doesn’t really have much connection. (see, that sentence right there didn’t even make a whole lot of sense) For starters, I feel like I look like a total frump. Since Winter has decided to come back, I have on a gray sweater, black pants (which would be great if they were a little truer black. they’re more like a black khaki, so i keep worrying that people are thinking they look too much like faded black jeans, which are disgusting), and a pair of hiking sneakers. Blech. These pants are new, and are the exact same style as a couple other pairs I have for work and absolutely love, but like I said the color is just a little meh. And since I’ve never worn them before, I realized this morning that I don’t really have any shoes to go with them. They’re not dressy enough to wear my cute black faux-patent leather flats, and I apparently have no other casual black shoes. So sneakers it was. Gross. *I’m open to all suggestions for good casual black shoes. The comfier and cuter the better.*

And since we’re back in the 40s today from the gorgeous sun and 60s yesterday, I had to get another jog in last night to take advantage. I decided my new rule is I’m not running unless it’s at least 50 degrees outside, because I hate running in cold weather. And I don’t see 50s in the forecast again until next week, so I made my butt get in gear last night. I changed up my route again – went 2.11 miles in 18:56, which is 8:57 pace. Woo wee! I’m very surprised I broke the 9:00 pace, because it certainly felt like my slowest run yet. I was expecting to get slower from when I started before I get faster though, seeing as my body has to get back into shape after the weirdest, probably most traumatic thing it’s ever been through. So that’s pretty encouraging. I could feel it in my left knee and ankle by the time I got done, though, so a couple days off may be a good thing right now.

D has decided to be a little stinker lately and not take her afternoon naps at daycare. Hence, she’s tired and cranky when we get home and has to take an evening nap, which I was hoping she was starting to drop. Tuesday we were supposed to go to swimming, but she was so tired she fell asleep when I fed her when we got home and I didn’t have the heart to wake her – she ended up sleeping for an hour and a half. I figured she needed that more than being dunked by Mommy. 😉 When she doesn’t nap well she doesn’t sleep as well at night either. She’s awoken a couple nights this week, with last night’s wake up coming at 4:00. Fabulous. And since she ate then, I had a sneaking suspicion she wasn’t going to be hungry when she woke up for good this morning. I was right. I tried to feed her anyway, and paid the price. She bit me! Numerous times in a row! I know she obviously doesn’t do it on purpose – she’s not hungry but has something in her mouth, so it becomes a chew toy instead – but goddamn, does that hurt! And I’m afraid I scared her this morning too, because when she did it for like the 4th time in a row I pulled back and said, “Stop biting!” She looked up at me with these huge eyes and a tiny little frowny face and almost instantly started crying, big tears and all. I felt so terrible. I should have learned from the first nibble that she wasn’t hungry, but I kept trying. Poor little thing. Why is Mommy shouting at me? I’m just lying here looking up at her with my gorgeous gray eyes. 🙁 Oh man, I felt so mean. That beautiful little face was so sad; I don’t think I’ve seen her cry from fear before. Needless to say, she got lots more hugs before we left for daycare. Unfortunately, her lack of eating leaves me in the ever-so-lovely lopsided state. Bleh.

She loves playing in her playpen now too. How adorable is this??

 

Our little zoo animal

 

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F for Mommy

Ok, so I mentioned the other day how D’s cold got a lot worse this weekend with the bad cough that was making her gag and all that loveliness. Well, yesterday morning it was nearly impossible to wake her up to get ready for daycare at her usual 6:30 hour, and once I was able to roust her the coughing began again in earnest. The poor little thing was hacking and gagging all over the place, and I just felt terrible for her. Each time the coughs would come she’d cling onto my shoulder for dear life as I was holding her. So by the time I got her changed, fed (she could hardly nurse either since her nose was so stuffed up), and dressed, we decided that it would probably be best for her to stay home from daycare seeing how awful she looked. Fortunately it’s pretty easy for R to work from home if needed, so he stayed back with her. Sick day #1 of her life.

I called the doctor’s office and explained how she’s had this cold for months and it ebbs and flows, but now the cough is really bad with the gagging and all. So they wanted to see her this time and R took her in at noon. The prognosis? Sho’ nuf, ear infection in her right ear. Boo. A couple people had told me they thought she had one once they heard about the crying at bedtime we experienced a couple weeks ago, but I thought that couldn’t be it – she never pulled at her ear like it bothered her, she was never out of sorts any other time than bedtime, never had a fever or anything like that. Apparently I was wrong. So we got her going on some amoxicillin starting yesterday for 10 days. You know, the fun pink stuff you shake up and keep in the fridge. I used to love it when I was a kid (yeah i know – weird, duh. but it was pink, thick, and tasted good) and she does too. She happily sucks down the 3mL in the dropper we have to give her twice a day. When I told the lady at daycare this morning that it was an ear infection she said she wasn’t surprised seeing how contagious they are. They are? Dang, I didn’t know that either. Little daycare mongrels.

Oh yeah – I do trust doctors, and I LOVE D’s pediatrician. D gets her immunizations (as horrible it is hearing her cry during the shots) and if medicines are prescribed to make her better (or myself, for that matter), we will be giving them to her. Don’t flame me if you’re against modern medicine and all the evils you’ve heard it causes to the human body, I dig it. And if it will help my baby heal and end her suffering, then she can’t take it soon enough as far as I’m concerned. That said, however, I am not a proponent of just pumping meds in at the first sign of a sniffle; but if whatever’s wrong has been going on long enough with no relief in sight, then give me what I need to make it better.

I felt horrible when I heard that it was an ear infection, though. How long has it been festering in there? Has she really been in pain and we didn’t know it? Were there some signs that we just didn’t recognize and therefore accidentally ignored? R said the doctor couldn’t tell how long it had been in there, so hopefully it hasn’t been too long. Apparently there is a cough reflex in the ear, which is why the bad coughing that started the past couple of days was a sign. Good to know.

So I will chalk this one up as an F in the Mommy category (possibly one of many) – who lets their baby endure an ear infection without even knowing it? Gheesh. Ah well, live and learn!

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Milkin’ Mama

Or Moo, as R likes to say. For you see, I breastfeed D. Wait, I guess I should put a disclaimer here:  ** This post is all about the wide, wacky world of my boobs since D was born. So if you don’t care for that subject, please turn back now. For the rest of you, let’s break on through…. **

To breastfeed or not is probably one of the first questions on most new moms’ minds. And sometimes, it’s not entirely up to them. The baby may not latch on right, the milk supply may not be there, and honestly, it’s just not for everyone. From the time I found out I was pregnant, though, I knew I would give breastfeeding a shot.

I was never one of those women who was adamant either way on the issue, but I just felt it would be right for me to try. I actually was somewhat expecting it not to go smoothly for me since I am not, how shall we say, well-endowed in the chesticles region. 😉 Why I thought that would be an issue, who knows. I’m weird, you should know that by now.

Anyhoo… Fortunately my worries were quashed practically immediately after D was born, for as soon as they got her out and cleaned off in the delivery room, they positioned her on my chest and she started sucking away. (see, if you were one of those who turned back, that image probably would’ve grossed you out. hence, the disclaimer) I kept thinking what in the world good is that doing? There’s nothing in there, I can’t tell if anything’s coming out, and these things are so little there’s no way they’re providing her any nutrients whatsoever.

The nurses reassured me, though, that even though I wasn’t producing milk yet, the colostrum she was getting those first couple of days (fancy medical term essentially meaning pre-milk) was basically liquid gold to her body and was all she needed. Ok, if you say so. I’ve never done this before so I’ll trust you guys.

Fast forward a couple days to a day or two after we got home from the hospital, so either 3-4 days after she was born, and VAVOOM! These babies filled up like you would not believe, and I was shocked to see myself in the mirror that day. I even made R come into the bathroom to take a look, because it’s nothing he’d ever seen with me before. 😉 I said look at these! Don’t they look like implants?! They totally did too – perfectly round, just stuck right on there all perky for the world to see. Hey, I could get used to this; now I see why some chicks get the surgery.

And ever since then, I have been Mama Moo. R jokes that we should just go up to the farm and he could hook me up to the cows’ milking machine. Um, NO! I don’t want them to get ripped off, thankyouverymuch.

Everyone has their own personal reasons for choosing whether or not to breastfeed their babies, but my main criteria were thrice:

  1. It’s free
  2. It’s the best thing for her, so if I am capable of producing it then why not give it to her?
  3. It’s been easy and pretty convenient for me

Oh real nice, SM, you decided whether or not to breastfeed based on economical reasons? Um, yes. Please revisit #1 – it’s FREE. Have you priced formula lately? That shit is expensive! So if I am physically able to provide my daughter my milk at no added cost to our family, why wouldn’t I?

And I know formula is not harmful to babies (duh, or else it wouldn’t be out there), but I have never heard anyone say that formula is better for an infant than breast milk. I do personally believe there is some truth to the saying “Breast is Best”, but again, I’m not one of those staunch exclusive breastfeeding moms who looks scornfully down upon anyone who formula feeds. No way, none of that crap going on here. This is just what I chose.

And as for #3 – breastfeeding has worked easily and comfortably into our schedule. For the first couple months that’s all she did was nurse, no solids yet. So it was great – she’s hungry, I’m full, let’s do this. And believe me, when I say full, I mean FULL. Man, if she didn’t eat for one reason or another or I didn’t pump for too long at a time we were talking some serious swelling going on.

Remember the implant day? Yeah, they tend to get back to that status after too many hours of no sucking, whether it be from D or the milk machine. And dude, it hurts! I never would have thought boobs full of milk would be a painful thing, just more like a squishy water balloon or something, but boy was I wrong. The only thing I can even think to relate it to, and having no personal physical experience with this I can’t confirm for sure, but is when a guy hasn’t, well, um, you know…. released?

The one thing I really haven’t had to deal with is nursing in public, thankfully. For the most part we’ve timed outings so she’s either fed before or after we go, or we take pumped bottles for while we’re gone, or whatever. If we go to friends’ or relatives’ houses I’ll obviously just nurse her there if we stay long enough, too.

And I have nursed her in the back seat of the car, but never just right out in the open in a public setting. I do have a nursing cover for such instances, but I still think I’d feel a little weird. I’m pretty private like that, and I don’t really want people watching when I’ve got things hanging out, cover or not. In fact, the only people I’ve actually nursed in front of are R, my mom, and one of R’s sisters-in-law. They’ve got kids, they don’t care. 🙂

I was a little anxious to see how pumping was going to go once I went back to work, but so far it’s been no trouble at all. I have one of the good double electric pumps, so I only have to do it once a day, and it only takes about 20 minutes total from the time I step off to the time I’m back at my desk.

And I don’t make a big deal about it with fanfare and an announcement that I’m going to go relieve by breasteses or anything like that, I just discreetly step away and return. I figure if anybody has a problem with it, screw them. D comes first now in every aspect of my life, and anyone with kids (which is practically everyone with whom i work) should recognize and respect that.

It works out perfectly, too, because we send the two bottles I pump at work each day to daycare with D for the next day. Actually, I pump 3 bottles a day, because in the morning I need to pump the side on which she doesn’t eat, too. Ok, so 3 bottles go to daycare, and then sometimes we get a backlog so I’ll freeze the morning ones. This kid gets lots of milk. 🙂

I actually started pumping and freezing milk a while before I went back to work, just in case my supply dwindled too soon, or pumping during the workday ended up being a bust (ha! no pun intended), or things just didn’t work out for whatever reason and we would need some back-up reserves. Fortunately we needed not worry there either.

When I said R says Moo about me, he’s not that far off. I seriously make enough milk for a couple babies. We have a freezer-full of bags in the basement, a freezer door-full of bags in the kitchen, and a couple bottles chilling in the fridge on a daily basis. Yep, I’ve got milk.

I’m planning on breastfeeding D for the whole first year, which, judging by how well my supply has lasted for almost 8 months so far, should be no problem whatsoever. It’s what I’m going to do when I want to stop that kind of frightens me. I don’t get quite as engorged after long periods of no relief as I did in the early months, but these suckers still get quite enlarged and painful if I do go too long.

So what am I supposed to do when it comes time to stop if I’m still producing this much? Do I just pump little bits at a time less frequently to trick my body into thinking I don’t need to make that much? Do I suck it up and just sit in pain for a few days until they go down? (that last notion scares the shit out of me, because i’m not kidding when i keep saying these things hurt when they’re full!) Eek, we shall see.

One nice side effect of BFing that I’ve experienced is that it has served as my *exercise* for going on 8 months now. I’ve read that it burns like 500+ calories a day, depending on how much you produce, and I believe it. Without substantially changing my diet at all (and actually eating crappier than usual sometimes) I’ve been able to lose all the weight I gained during my pregnancy and then some, and I credit 100% of that weight loss to BFing.

I haven’t worked out regularly since shortly after D was born, and even then I was just taking her for walks. Before that, it was a good couple months since I’d followed my normal workout schedule, so it’s pushing a year now that I haven’t exercised like I’m used to.

I haven’t gone this long without regular exercise since high school, and I really need to get my butt back in shape. I’m still contemplating trying a half marathon this summer, so I need to do some serious work to get my cardiovascular stamina back up. I’m not gonna lie, I am a big fan of the BFing weight loss, but I really am wimpy right now in the fitness category.

Oh, and I forgot to mention – nursing releases some hormone that has a calming effect on both baby and mom, so yeah, I’ll take that too. And now that I think about it, never once have I felt nervous or antsy or rushed or unsettled at all while breastfeeding D.

Moo.

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Just to clarify

I got to thinking about my previous post this evening, and I just wanted to clarify something. Although I love D unconditionally and can’t get mad at her when she’s miserable and screaming in my face because it’s my job to fix whatever’s causing the misery, I wasn’t trying to imply that every day of parenthood is rainbows and unicorns. Some days it is, but others it’s really really hard work. In fact, about 7 weeks after D was born, I announced that I had had all I could take and I was done being a mommy. Remember that lack of patience with which I was blessed? Yeah, it had kicked in big time at that point, fueled by broken sleep and lack of a newborn instruction manual.

So I certainly wasn’t trying to say oh hey, look at me, I’m such a great parent because I soothe my crying baby to sleep each night. No, not at all. Hell, I have no idea if I’m a good parent or not. Granted D hasn’t broken into the neighbors’ homes or kicked anyone’s cat yet, but she is only 7 months old. There’s still plenty of time for my parenting skills to pass or fail.

I will claim one small victory though. D actually went to bed peacefully again tonight. *knock on wood* I’m not sure if it was the bowl of cereal I fed her around 6:00, or her not taking her usual evening nap, or me nursing her the last time in the rocking chair in her room instead of on the couch, or leaving her Jerry Garcia songs for kids on in her room, but I’ll take it. I put her to bed at 8:30, which might be a little early, but it’s not too far off. Generally she’s in bed around 9:00, so hopefully this will work. We did hear one little wail a few minutes ago, but I think it may have just been a sleep terror. Fun, huh? Fortunately it was a singular squawk, so hopefully his friends don’t come out to play later. Keep your fingers crossed for a full night’s sleep to go with the scream-free bedtime!

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So this is what unconditional love sounds like

R and I have really been blessed with D. She was never colicky as a newborn, generally not fussy very often at all, doesn’t get all bent out of shape when we take her places and she has to adjust her schedule to new and unfamiliar surroundings, and is just a really happy kid overall. But in the past week or so she has adopted a new bedtime routine – screaming. And not just your ordinary run-of-the-mill screaming; I mean screaming like someone’s poking her with a branding iron.

Her normal bedtime routine has been fairly consistent since birth. After the last time she nurses for the night she falls asleep on my shoulder and I put her to bed shortly thereafter. Even if she wakes up a little after eating, we can usually still just put her in her crib with her rain forest sounds on and rainbow light on the ceiling, and she’ll put herself to sleep within a few minutes. Alas, those days of easy sleepy time have apparently been forgotten. Now when I try to put her to bed she looks at me like just what do you think you’re doing, Mom?, and starts crying. This has occurred almost every night for about the past week. Even if she has fallen asleep on my shoulder after eating she wakes up as soon as she feels herself being put in her crib and the cries begin. And if R goes in there after a while to try and comfort her, she starts screaming even harder. Odd.

Last night I thought maybe we had it licked. The usual crying happened instantly when I put her down the first time, so I didn’t even try to fight it and just took her back out into the living room. It was a little early for her to go down for the night anyway even though she was obviously tired, so I didn’t really think too much of it, knowing how the past couple nights have been going. And of course she started playing and laughing right away, as if to say see, I told you I wasn’t ready for bed. Silly Mommy. Strike 1.

About an hour later she was getting real dozy in my arms (plus it was getting to be my bedtime too), so R said just try putting her down and if she cries, she cries. Okey dokey, here goes nothing. Of course the wails started right on cue as I laid her down, so I turned on her rain forest sounds and light and just let her cry. I proceeded to go to bed, and after about 10 minutes sure enough, the screams subsided and the individual cries became very few and far between. Success! Or so I thought. Her projector must have hit its 12 minute time limit when you have the light on, because all of a sudden she started shrieking again. Strike 2. This time R went in and got her, but as soon as he picked her up I could hear her sobs getting stronger and stronger and she approached a banshee decibel level. Ok, time for Mommy to step back in. As soon as I took her from R she calmed down, as usual. So yet again, after a few more minutes I nursed her once more and she was knocked out for the night. I guess 3rd time’s a charm, eh?

Throughout all of this I’m pretty surprised I never get mad or really upset at all, seeing how I was born with a negative patience level. Besides being disappointed that I get less sleep than I’d like, the more overriding emotion is feeling so bad for D. That poor little red face and gasps and sobs and rivers of tears are enough to break your heart. I’m sure letting her cry it out is the way to conquer this night time terror fest, but once she reaches a fever pitch I start to get a little nervous. Unhappy crying is one thing; screaming bloody murder like Freddy Krueger is in her crib is quite another.

Last night proved once again that my Mommy love is totally different than any other kind – it is 100% completely and undeniably unconditional. For if anyone else screamed in my face that they didn’t want to go to bed when I was bone tired and trying to go to bed myself, they would promptly be told to shut the f up. 😉

Oh, but I will take any suggestions on how to get rid of this bedtime beast once and for all…

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To kid, or not to kid?

That is a question I guess most everyone must answer at some point in his or her life – do I want to have kids, or do I not want to have kids? And if I do, in what way will I begin that process?

It is a very personal and sometimes very private decision. And I know for many it is not always that simple; some who so very badly want children are unable to have their own. It can become a very heart-breaking struggle, and in no way, shape, or form do I want to give the impression that I am making light of anyone who has had to endure such hurdles in building a family. I just want to share a little of my own tale…

Never was I the type of person who thought, oh I can’t wait to be a mom! Not that I definitely didn’t want to – I always assumed that someday I’d probably have kids – but more that it just wasn’t something I really thought about that much. I was always more of the vein, “Oh your kids are really cute, but you can keep them over there with you.” 😉

Even once R and I were married, baby fever never set in like it does for a lot of people. We didn’t really discuss kids either – when we wanted to start having them, if we wanted to start having them, how many, etc. I think we both just figured we’d have them eventually. I knew R wanted kids for sure, but I still wasn’t 100% convinced that being a parent was right for me.

Fortunately we never got the “So when are you going to have a baby?” prodding from either of our families, so I never felt any pressure to hop on that train.

I loved our life as a couple – we could do whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted, we could go wherever we pleased, and we could do it all with very little advance notice or planning. We had a ridiculous amount of fun, and it was just the two of us. That was my biggest qualm about having kids – I didn’t want to share R. Oh yeah, I’m selfish, too. 🙂

Then I turned 30.

Ugh.

The big 3-0.

Some people are like I’m 30, woo hoo, let’s par-tay!! I was like I’m 30, barf, I’m old, it’s the worst thing ever. I honestly wouldn’t have been surprised if the world ended on my 30th birthday, that’s how much I was dreading the day.

But it was also a biological turning point. I thought well, I’m 30, if we’re going to try to have kids, we’d better get started because I’m certainly not getting any younger.

I really believe it was not having a 2 to start my age that was the baby catalyst for me. Kind of like oo, 30, that’s very adult-sounding, you’d better have some kids soon if that’s what you want to do. Hmm, typing it out like this makes me sound more like a weirdo than anything, but that’s pretty much what my thought process was.

I was very lucky, too, that R was so chill about the whole thing. Like I said, he’d already revealed that he wanted to have kids, but he never pressured me either. So when I finally decided I was ready and asked him what he thought, I will never forget the sweetest words of his reply: “I’ve just been waiting for you.” ::melt my heart::

And when I told him that the biggest roadblock for me was not wanting to share him and missing having “just us”, he said, “It’ll just be a bigger us.” Well ok, now that you put it that way, it doesn’t sound quite so scary.

And so it began.

Now, I’m the type of person who likes to know exactly what’s going on instead of just leaving things to chance and seeing what happens. So I started tracking everything I could to figure out what my body was doing and how things were shaping up to make this happen. I had gone off the pill about 9 months before we really started “trying” to try to get my body back on its natural track. I was on it for roughly 10 years prior, so I was afraid I’d messed something up on the inside in that length of time.

Fortunately that wasn’t the case, and even though my natural cycles ended up being pretty long, I got pregnant on our second real attempt. D was starting to bake.

Fast forward just under 39 weeks, and we had a baby girl. Yikes!! Now what?

Utter and complete infatuation and love like I’ve never known, that’s what. As soon as we were out of the delivery room and trying to comprehend that we were now a family of 3, that’s when my baby fever set in.

I was in heaven.

It was the craziest thing I’ve ever experienced – in seemingly an instant I was a mom and it felt oh so right. Never in a million years would I have thought I would enjoy this, let alone love it. But I do. D is the most amazing thing we’ve ever done, and R was right – it is just a bigger “us” now.

Now here’s what’s been on my mind a lot lately. How do you know if/when you’re ready for more?

You’ll think I’m nuts, but as soon as D was born I immediately wanted another baby. I just really thrived being a new mommy and knowing that every single thing she needed came from us. That automatically became my #1 job – take care of and protect her.

And these past 7 1/2 months have been awesome. She is a beautiful, hilarious little person, and spending time with her just makes my day that much better. And I know we definitely want more kids, but I’m kind of back to my original question – how can I possibly share D with another child?

Will it be unfair to take time away from her to care for another baby, even though it will obviously be necessary? I certainly won’t ignore her when another one comes, but will she see it that way? Will she feel like Mommy loves the new baby more since that’s the one that will need so much attention at first? How long should we wait before trying for another, and how do we know what age span between the two (or more) we will be able to handle? And how can I possibly love someone else as much as I love this little girl?

I guess I just have to keep remembering that with each child I won’t be losing space in my heart or life for everyone else, I’m just expanding it exponentially for the newcomers. So, god-willing, hopefully we can add a few more to our brood and Mommy will be ok. Well, maybe not a “few” more, but hopefully at least one. 🙂

Stay tuned for D v2.0…

A mother is not a person to lean on but a person to make leaning unnecessary.  ~Dorothy C. Fisher