"Dreading" a Baby?

In motherhood there are things that you don't really feel like you can say out loud.  There are feelings and thoughts and doubts you have that you feel guilty for even thinking and you know that if you say it out loud you will be judged.  Heck, you even judge yourself for even thinking said thought.   

Dane was very much a wanted (and planned for) baby.  I started having intense baby fever and Marvin Vallette was (as always) along for the ride.  We decided to wait to "try" until the 3 million weddings we were serving in were done.  After the last wedding, we started "trying".  (Allow us a moment to talk about how weird it is when people say "trying", like, everyone knows that means HAVE SEX, but for some reason it's acceptable to ask people if they are "trying".  Like, you can say "are y'all trying" and not feel weird, but you can't be all "are y'all having sex often and around your fertile period" and not feel weird.  There's something wrong there.)  Moving on....

It took us three months to get pregnant.  Looking back on it, that's pretty quick.  But, at the time it was super emotional for me.  It felt like an eternity.  Issues kept coming up and it was stressing me out.  I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism and I wasn't ovulating. We got pregnant with Elaina so quickly that it made my head spin.  Like, literally 2 weeks off of birth control and BAM!  That's what I was expecting this time, too.  Why wasn't this happening?  

I was so ready to get pregnant that EVERY symptom meant I was pregnant.  I had a headache: I was pregnant.  I smelled something gross: I was pregnant.  I probably took, like, 45 pregnancy tests in that 3 month window.  The second month I was 100% positive that I was pregnant.  I FELT pregnant.  I had absolutely no doubt.  I took tests and they were negative, and I was SO SURE that I told myself "it's just too early to show" and kept waiting for that second line to pop up.  It never did.  I wasn't pregnant.  That pretty much devastated me and I vowed to not ever take another pregnancy test again until I felt the baby kick (or something equally crazy).  When I finally did take a test it was because Marvin basically made me. I was a week late, but I was 100% positive that I wasn't pregnant. I cried and cried and cried when the test finally had two lines.  I was ecstatic! 

I don't know how the people who struggle for years to get pregnant do it.  I can understand why that can be such a strain on a marriage.  I almost went insane and it was only 3 months.

So, anyway, I got pregnant and I was ecstatic.  I couldn't wait.  I knew immediately it was a boy.  I just had a "feeling".  I had the boy name all picked out and I made a registry online (for my own organization) of all the things we would need for Dane.  

Then, I started showing and I felt like a hippo, and I remembered that pregnancy isn't all beauty and rainbows.  I felt fat again.  When I was 8 weeks along my mother-in-law said "you're going to be SO BIG, huh?".  It hurt my feelings because I'm already so touchy about my weight.  She truly thought she was giving me a compliment.  She says she "loves big pregnant bellies".  She has good intentions and a great, big heart so you can't be mad at her, but I'm ultra sensitive about my body image so it just added to my issues. 

So, now I'm feeling fat and ugly.  Then came the part that I was scared to tell most people: I was dreading having another baby.  That word sounds so strong: dread. I feel the judgment through the computer screen. How crazy am I?  I cried and freaked out when I "couldn't" get pregnant the exact second that I wanted to and now that we're expecting a baby I'm "dreading" it?

Let me explain:  all of a sudden, I remembered what having a newborn was like.  I remembered what goes into it.  I remembered how much of ME it was going to take.  Our life right now is so..... NEAT.  We have our schedule and our life runs like a well oiled machine.  Elaina is 2.5 and we are organized and in a groove.  If I need to go to Wal Mart to pick up bananas: we load up and drive to Wal Mart, we walk in, grab bananas, pay and come home.  Elaina is a little person who is highly portable.  She is basically like my little buddy.  She can speak clearly, express herself easily and is easily reasoned with. Newborns....not so much.

This baby is going to take our neat, organized, well-oiled machine and throw a monkey wrench into it. 

Knowing my daughter, we're going to deal with jealousy issues.  She's going to have to adjust to her mommy all of a sudden paying attention to this baby and not devoting 100% solely to her.  I was dreading that change.  I was dreading what this would mean for Elaina.  And then, I got excited again.  

I mean, I am still aware that this baby is going to shake things up.  My house probably won't be clean every day like it is now.  I probably won't get to pick up and run errands like I do now.  I won't get a date night with my husband for a while.  I won't get uninterrupted sleep for a few months (maybe longer?).  But, that's ok and we'll adjust.  We'll get into a two-kid groove (eventually).  It'll be hard at the beginning (just like it was with Elaina), but it won't be hard forever.  We'll develop a new sense of what "normal" is.  

Moms aren't allowed to say things like "I'm not really excited".  They're not allowed to express anything other than rainbows and unicorn love for their offspring.  So, I just wanted to take a little time to be honest about something I was struggling with.  I'm passed it and I'm just purely excited now, but maybe once he's here I'll have some other worry or stress or negative feeling.  

It doesn't mean we don't love our children; it just means we're human. 

 
 
 Me, ummmm, celebrating? This was the last wedding of the year for us!