"To sleep, perchance to dream- ay, there's the rub."

insomnia.  not complete and total insomnia.  sort of, intermittent, insomnia.  temporary, i guess.

every night i wake up.  if not of my own accord (cursed is the bladder of the pregnant woman), then by that of my children; up at some point in the night:  the potty break, the thunderstorm, the croupy cough.  last night the coughing had Slim up.  upset that we could not hear him calling in his hoarse and almost non-existent voice, i decided to sleep the rest of the night on his floor next to his bed.  perfect for falling back to sleep.

bedding on the floor aside, even left back on my own comfy pillowtop, i am destined to lay awake for at least an hour or sometimes two, pondering this new life as "mother of three," or contemplating the mountain of laundry needed to be done, or suddenly gnawed by the thought of the report I forgot to submit at work that day.  also perfect for falling back to sleep.

tonight i may lay awake, excited to be going to New York tomorrow with some girlfriends.  i have this sort of "bachelorette" feeling--a last hurrah of sorts.  when your two oldest are eight and six you occasionally have the opportunity to go somewhere without them, and feel wholly like someone's friend, like a pal, like a woman who doesn't not (for once) need to hold up the other end of a conversation about ear infections, school lunches or poop.  tomorrow i will be that woman.  in six months I will not.  at least not for another 5-6 years.

so tonight i shall try my best to sleep (although it occurs to me that this is usually the least effective way of falling asleep).  whether or not i dream?  who cares.  sleep is the thing.  sleep.

it all comes out in the wash....

another baby-doctor appointment today.  twelve weeks.  May seems so far away and yet I already feel like I have been pregnant so long.  the midwife I saw today warned that she might not be able to hear a heartbeat right away but that she would get out the ultrasound to check the baby if we could not find it.  she had barely touched down on my stomach with the wand and bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum at 150 beats per minute in that squishy-sounding watery rhythm.  life.

I am at the back end of the first trimester and seeming to feel better in the past few days.  less of the constant nausea, maybe a little more of the ravenous hunger, but generally better.  not quite so tired ALL the time.

so I have finally pinpointed my greatest fear in all of this.  it is not labor (a third go-round passing another likely 9+ lbs of tiny human).  it is not the sleepless nights or even revisiting diaper-changing.  it is the increase in laundry.

I HATE doing the laundry.  occasionally I find it therapeutic to get lost in folding:  watching some show on the DVR, folding, organizing piles, matching socks.  but mostly I hate the process.  turning the loads from washer to dryer, carrying them upstairs, finding the energy.  and even if I get some strange pleasure out of folding things, I absolutely can't stand putting it away.

well now I'll be having even more fun.  tiny things that are barely able to be folded, let alone folded into neat piles.  and stuffing them into shallow drawers?  I can hardly wait.  and not only is folding this stuff a pain, but it really should be washed separately, creating some crazy exponential increase in the entire operation.  for one tiny being:  onesies, teeny socks, blankets, bibs, burp cloths, hats.  all in need of their own laundry side job.

Shop Therapy

a couple of weeks ago I went shopping with a friend to the outlets.  what better way to have some fun with this than to try a little shopping therapy?  cute little baby clothes, blankets, toys.  trying to envision the fun stuff:  clean baby smell, wrapping them in a warm fuzzy baby towel, covering tiny toes with impossibly tiny socks.  it was even fun to have Moo and Slim along to help pick stuff out.

let me just say, I have never been a "shopper."  I was not a mall rat, didn't like clothes shopping (rather hated it, actually) as a child, a teenager and even an adult.  i really never liked shopping until i had kids.  I love finding bargains on school clothes, picking out things i hope they will like.  it seemed fitting to find a little fun looking for some new things for this kid.  and it was fun.  seeing all of this stuff that I have had no reason to look at for years.  checking out whatever "new" animal is in fashion this year (lots of monkeys and even some polar bears [note the outfit in the picture]--particularly cool because that is my husband's favorite animal.  I was even a little proud to find it).  and brown is my new gender-neutral favorite color.  goes with anything--pink, blue, brights like orange or lime green--and most importantly it is NOT yellow.  proabably my least favorite color.

and watching the kids get excited about new baby outfits was, well, exciting.  I keep finding myself watching my kids and wondering what this one will look like.  what particular combination of features is cooking up in there.  will the baby have smooshy cheeks like Moo (still does) or maybe Slim's drooly grin?  will it (and please, don't take offense at my use of the word "it"--I find it so less stuffy than he/she or him/her--i'm really not that PC.  and I do know it is a BABY) be as large as my first two newborns??  (God help me!)

so my worries are different now, and less panicky and more curious.  and I'm having fun.  no matter how crazy it gets later, I can have fun now.  and if things get too heavy--there's ALWAYS more shopping.....

ode to joy

so this is how this plays out in our house:

daddy and mommy:  nervous.  and probably still living in some level of denial.  I'm thinking about bits and pieces every day.  random things that pop up as life goes on and i witness all the little things i didn't quite remember and have yet to experience for the third time.  oh yeah.  oh yeah, and that.  oh yeah.  ugh!

Moo (the 9-yr-old big sister):  absolutely positively giddy with excitement.  i mean, every time she sees me after any absence longer than 10 minutes, she runs toward me with arms and hands flying squealing "I can't believe we're gonna have a baby!!!!!"  me neither.

Slim (the 6-yr-old big brother):  TEARS.  he was less than thrilled and this did not surprise me in the least.  he is my baby, and he would have been perfectly happy having stayed my baby forever.  no need for another.  but he has come around already, as I knew he would have.  he is such a loving and caring little guy.  he greets me every morning with a hug and a kiss and a light belly rub.  and i can feel his everything-is-right-in-the-world sigh.  and i wish it was mine.

see i am still trying to find the joy in this.  everything is not quite right in my world.  i am intrigued by everyone's good wishes and congratulations.  i want to say, thanks, but no.  i'm not looking for a pat on the back.  one of the first gut reactions my husband had was to say "what are we gonna tell our parents?!?"  (more out of incredulity, not a genuine sense of being afraid to tell them) but I COMPLETELY understood what he was saying.  somehow it felt like we did something really wrong--and I really do not want to feel like that.  like this.

i WANT to be so happy about this.  i want to think about all the tiny little things that I have probably already forgotten about my first two as babies.  tiny little toes to kiss, soft skin, fuzzy hair, baby smiles, cute little clothes.  i want to feel the happiness that everyone around me seems to feel.   some kind of joy osmosis.

in my head i understand that i will love this child as much as my first two.  but my heart is not in this right now. i can't get past the annoyingly practical hurdles that keep coming to mind:  who will watch the kids when we go HAVE the baby?  how can we afford this?  how will i keep working (i.e.earning income to answer previous question)? where will we find room for another little person in this house?    i feel stuck in this whirlpool of guilt-inducing yet real questions that won't let me rest until i have reasonable answers to them.

it makes me sad.  because i truly loved being pregnant the first two times.  even though i know i will love the destination, i want to enjoy the journey.

and here we go again......

so, i'm not laughing.  in fact, i cried.  a knee-jerk reaction, nerves, release--whatever you want to call it, I can honestly say it was not tears of joy.

i have so many mixed feelings about this.  this pregnancy will be different for so many reasons.  For one thing, we are away from "home."  three to four hours away from the nearest family.  that alone is a little scary.  how can I call my mom or my sister on the way to the hospital?  would they make it before the baby?  random and maybe silly thoughts to have now, but I can't seem to find enough things to worry about.  NOT my usual M.O.

another difference?  I am now 37 years old.  past the magic "35" when genetic testing is now "routinely offered" (not "recommended," just "routinely offered").  in other words, "we can't tell you that you HAVE TO get these tests done, but we don't want you to come back and say we didn't warn you later--just in case something IS wrong."

and of course our whole lives are different.  my 8-yr-old princess and my 6-yr-old prince.  two AWESOME kids so past the baby stages--them and me.  we have Cub scouts and Brownie meetings, PTO meetings and a Toyota Corolla.  (okay, we have a KIA minivan, too, but have now ceased our ongoing conversation about trading it in.)  Now I have to return to preschool, Huggies and cradle cap.  sleepless nights, diaper rash, breastfeeding and where the hell is this kid gonna fit?  we're maxed out in square footage and need i remind myself that this is probably not the best time to try and sell the house?  (see second paragraph above, second-to-last line. can you see the circles I'm running in?)  last night I had a dream about gray hair.

so anyway, someday my third child will be literate and resourceful enough to find this post and work me over with guilt.  and i probably deserve it:  the bane of the Not-So-Super-Mom.  the blessing?  i'll get over it, and so will the kid.

The Big 3 Uh-oh!

Tomorrow is the big day.  the day I find out if I am pregnant.  For the third time.  Unplanned--for the third time.  Three years ago i would have been brimming with excitement, wishing and hoping.  Now I say that I am 90% sure that I am, and the other 10% is just denial.   i cannot believe, until there is undeniable proof.  i was utterly unconvinced by the ambiguous home test results.  both of them.  


don't get me wrong, i love both of my kids.  and, like I said, three or four years ago I was trying desperately to convince my husband that having a third kid might be fun.  flash forward and i am WAY past diaper changing, my little guy is a first-grader and I am over my wild ideas that we should be a party of five.


so, here's the deal.  i could be totally wrong about my whole situation, but i am so horribly symptomatic, that i hope i AM pregnant.  if I'm not now, then there is something seriously wrong with me:  ravenous hunger alternating with persistent nausea, constipation (sorry), ever-present indigestion (already! I mean, enough with the burping and hiccuping.  seriously) and utter exhaustion.  what else COULD it be?


the fact of the matter is, in the end, I will be alright.  there will be a beautiful baby and so much to do, i will forget all about these worrisome days.   and if i am wrong?  well, so i will eat some crow and laugh at myself later.