Pregnancy Comparisons

Both of my pregnancies have been conceived after a grandparent dies. For Potamus it was Boof’s grandpa. For this little Whirlygig it was after my grandma. It’s part of the reason I’m hoping for a girl. Then our naming scheme will be right in sync. Also, for someone who didn’t want to have kids, having karmic reincarnation conception stories (not that I believe Potamus is Boof’s grandpa, or this Whirlygig is my grandma), is pretty fucking cool.

But let’s talk about what isn’t cool: pregnancy symptoms.

Now maybe it’s because I had just started a new job as a crisis counselor the day I found out I was pregnant the last go round, but with Potamus I had zero symptoms. Besides gaining weight, craving pizza and Dairy Queen Blizzards, one week of heartburn, and some low back pain toward the end of pregnancy. I’d say those “didn’t count,” because A) I already had low back pain in life, B) I already eat a lot of pizza/Dairy Queen Blizzards, C) weight gain because it was a fucking baby inside me.

This time?

Oh golly.

While I’m not to Princess Kate’s level of nausea, let me say, the hours of 3-5pm are not that great. It’s not like I’m vomiting, but it’s more like the Spirit of Nausea Past. It’s haunting. Not like the day you’re actively hungover, but the next day, when you can still remember being hungover and the thought of alcohol wants to make you yak? It’s like that.

Even writing the word yak makes me want to yak.

I’m sensitive to smells. To a ridiculous degree. If there’s a missing person in the area, give me a sock, because I could find them. I’m not kidding. I can’t take out the garbage. I can’t be around onions or spicy foods. My own sweat makes me gag and I’m wearing deodorant. I don’t get it.

Zits. Yay. It’s like karma. I was the teen who went through the awkward years without any zits. Well, maybe a few, but definitely not the recurrent theme going on on my chin right now.

Lack of appetite. I’m forcing myself to eat a wide variety of things, even when I’m not hungry. I mill around the kitchen but nothing sounds good. This is not usual for me.

Lastly, the intense mood swings that have changed both my emotional outbursts and the way I see myself. I normally don’t have any body image issues, but until today I have felt like a fat bloaty cow and wish I could just wear sweatpants and a baggy shirt for the next 10 months. Surprisingly, today I feel a bit like a sex goddess, so maybe that’s the after effects of my water aerobics class last night. Tone the abs that will disappear in a few months.

But the mood swings you guys. They’re off the charts. I’m crying at commercials and while reading stories to Potamus. I’m raging at the slightest perception of criticism. I even slammed the phone down and hung up yesterday when my mom said she couldn’t hear me on the other end because of poor reception. We had been talking about hotdog buns. And I got irrationally angry. I sorta feel like I’m walking around without skin on and every nerve is exposed. It’s annoying.

So there ya go. This pregnancy is completely different than the last. I don’t know what to make of that (though googling these symptoms = baby girl, but I’m trying to not get my hopes up). I have the first trimester off, summer vacation, so hopefully by the time I go back to work in the fall (because it’s going to be CRAZY), I’ll have my shit together.

Announcement

I was two days late and figured Father’s Day was as good of a day as any to take a pregnancy test. If negative, it would be no harm no foul, since we weren’t going to start until July. If positive, it’d be an excuse for why I didn’t get Boof a gift.

I quelled the urge to take the test in the Target bathroom, but instead I recruited my best friend to take me to the store to buy a test.

Positive.

I’m having another baby.

If all goes well, this is my last pregnancy.

So I’m resurrecting the mommy blog to chronicle this journey the second time round. Already I’ll say my experience is vastly different. Symptom free the first time, I’m experiencing 3pm nausea, mood swings that could land me on a Real Housewives drama, and sensitivity to smell, among the most heightened. Seriously, don’t sweat near me. Or fart. Or eat anything with onions. Or pump gas. Or throw away garbage. I will hurl.

I’m off for summer break, which means the first trimester will be spent hanging with Potamus. I’m so early, but have announced it like the giant blabbermouth that I am.

Fun things: my SIL is due 4 months before me, so there’s gonna be cousins close in age. My due date will allow me to take Spring Quarter off (I already have summer off) and that puts me at about 6 months of ‘maternity’ leave!

And isn’t Potamus such a ham? Look at him getting all excited about his new baby sister*

*sex won’t be confirmed until October. BUT I’m hoping for a sister. So I’m putting sister vibes into the Universe. Will you join me?

Holding Off

I know there’s almost never a ‘right time’ to have a kid. But there are times that are better than others. And now isn’t that time. As I reflect on that negative pregnancy test from a few weeks back, I really feel that I dodged a bullet. Because while I know I would grow to love another child, right now isn’t the right time. What scares me, is will waiting be the right time, either?

If I am being 100% truthful, I only want 1 child. AND I also want a daughter, and a sibling for Potamus. It’s hard to hold those tensions. The more settled in I am lately, the more I realized that some of my angst of dealing with Potamus this summer was the projection and future-focus of the ‘what if’ having a second and how I was sure I wouldn’t be able to to do it. There was the infatuation with babies (certainly hormonal) that I hadn’t exprienced before Potamus was born, and seeing my friends with babies and this thought ‘oh, I want that.’

But do I want that? Or do I want what I once had, when I held this little human I created, who is now growing at such a rapid pace? I don’t know the answers to that, but Boof and I have been in a hard place relationally/emotionally/physically, and as parents. I think independently we do a good job parenting, but together we aren’t where we’d like to be. And I think that my desire to ‘rush to have another’ has been as a desperately perfectionistic attempt to a) bandaid a difficult situation, b) keep up with the joneses, c) give me more ‘ammunition’ when complaining about my identity/work-load balance/etc.

Even admitting all of that on paper is both cathartic and makes me wonder how many people will stop reading because surely I’m the worst woman ever (next to Miley Cyrus, of course 😉 ). It’s hard to admit that I was rushing in to a situation to try and fix an already hard situation, because we all know that’s the dumbest logic ever.

So I decided to make a decision. Instead of continuing to play ‘Russian Baby Roulette,’ by leaving the decision each month up to condoms or chance/fate/God, I am going on birth control. And I’m not going on the pill. I am choosing the IUD without hormones. It’s both an exciting and scary decision to make. Because  I know in my heart it’s the right choice, because it takes some control back on my own body, that feels it’s been subject to every whim and fancy, but it also means a decision has been made. We have decided to not have any more kids. …………….yet.

We will revisit the conversation next year. But even just saying that gets me nervous, because part of holding off means letting go of this ‘dream’ (that I’ve felt very influenced by media/friends/family) of having kids 2ish years apart…3 at most. Because now we’re talking 3.5 years apart at minimum. Probably more like 4.5. And that feels different to me, in providing a ‘sibling relationship’ to Potamus. Feels different adding an infant into a household revolving around schoolish activities. But that’s all getting ahead of myself, because, right now we are done having kids.

I’m looking at it that way because I love having one kid. I really love it. The thought of putting the IUD in has actually let me take exhale, as if I’ve been holding my breath for a really long time. It’s hard to describe, this feeling of contentedness and satisfaction and freedom with a choice. And yet, I’m worried about explaining this decision to others. So many people have opinions and beliefs about waiting for more kids, or what it’d mean to have one kid, but I know what’s right for us. And this is it. For now that is. And that’s what I need to keep in mind.

And, in it’s usual timely fashion, yesterday Offbeat families featured this article entitled 8 ways to help you deal when the time isn’t right to have a baby. I suggest you read it 🙂

How did you decide when/if to have kids (or have more kids)? How did you handle criticism or comments from family/friends? Any experience with the IUD you want to share?

How Fallopian Tubes are like Holocaust Cattle Cars

Trying to conceive is a strange experience. The more I learn about my body, the more I realize that junior high and high school health/biology class are severely lacking in the information department. Or maybe I was too busy doodling the name of my dreamy crush on my pee chee. Or both.

But seriously, it was only this week that I learned how…um…dumb (for lack of a better description) the whole getting pregnant thing really is. I mean, you have unprotected baby making sex, hopefully at the right time for the stars to align, and when you’re finished you go and get a drink of water, or take a shower or eat a sandwich. And meanwhile, if you’re the lady, there are are these microscopic swimming things just…oh you know….hanging out inside you. I mean, that’s like something from a B level Science Fiction movie…from the late 80’s.

So there they are, microscopic swimming things, who we’ve all thought of as swimming as fast as their little metaphorical hearts can go to get to the PRIZE of that glorious golden snitch bursting from the ovary. But in fact, it’s a lot less Olympics or Hunger games, and seems more like a really slow, drunken frat party. Because, according to one website’s description, the sperm (which can hang out for a few days inside, waiting…um…creepy…) just ‘bump into’ the egg and thus fertilize it.

Wait. You mean to tell me that my son was born because some sperm just randomly bumped into the egg? It wasn’t even like “oh hey baby, you’re so fine, come over here and let me fertilize you.” It was more like the egg stumbling on the way to the bathroom and being forced to marry the first dumb jock frat boy who bumps into her. Talk about fate. And kind of a dumb design if you ask me. Couldn’t they (being God, or Supreme Being, or hell, evolution) come up with a better idea than THAT?

Then again, it does seem to be working, as our Earth is teeming with human bodies.

But, all of this enlightenment about how the sperm that actually fertilizes an egg, got me thinking about the rest of the experience. Like, how sucky would it be to be trapped in the fallopian tubes for up to 3 days. It seems dark, and crowded if you ask me. And you’re surrounded by a bunch of millions of other like-minded microbes, who really just want to survive and meet that egg, but are most likely going to end up on the wrong side of Fate’s hand. And I’m not one to throw out Holocaust metaphors, but that dark, cramped fallopian tube, with millions of sperm that will eventually die, seems like those cattle cars the Nazi’s used in WWII. And I wonder, do the sperm know the chances that they will end up alive at the end of the whole ordeal? Are they blindly optimistic to the chance that they will somehow live on? So every time we have sex millions of sperm die…in my body….gross. It’s basically the Nazi regime all up in my lady parts.

Have you ever been surprised to learn something that you were supposed to have been taught in high school?