Older Tales - a Melange

In preparation for shutting down my Myspace profile, I'll be reposting a few of my favorite posts from that blog... bear with me if you've been subjected to these before. I decided that it was important to me to preserve the 'voice' that I had then...

A Few Things I've Learned - 10/07/09 (3 1/2 months old)

um, well... it's been interesting... or rather, not interesting so much as crazy... and yet we persevere...

3 1/2 months is tooooo young for out-of-town travel... it is more work than relaxation for Mama.

A baby of the aforementioned age can decide to go for over 12 hours without sleep, but she will make sure that you are as miserable as she believes herself to be.

13 pounds sounds light, but it will soon feel as though it could rip your arm out of it's socket - or perhaps you will just wish that it would.

My love for motherhood comes and goes... and comes back again. Strangely, it is not dependent upon the amount of screaming involved in any given day...

October weather is not any more conducive to clothes-wearing than July, August or September weather was. My best bet is still undergarments and (maybe) a tank top... unless I have to leave the house - then I stand in front of the closet and sob a little.

In that same vein, if you felt that you had 0.00 things to wear before pregnancy, you will have negative 3,000 things to wear after, and less money to remedy the situation.

It doesn't help to be a massage therapist yourself if your hands are too worn out to rub your own neck.

If someone with no attention span decides that they are bored, you are shit out of luck. There is no pleasing them.

There is no real way to explain why people agree to parenthood. Maybe they were hormonally tricked into believing it will be a good idea. Perhaps their friends lied to them about how hard it really is. The thing is, it can be every bit as miserable as it sounds, but somehow it not only evens out, but you come out ahead. Maybe the whole thing is a cosmic sleight-of-hand trick... pick a card. any card... no, not that one...


Late Night Musings - 09/25/09 (3 months old)

Everyone says it, but until you stand over your baby's bed in the middle of the night staring at them while they sleep, there is no way that it could even make sense. Until you're there just because you couldn't stand to not see them any longer, and you had to make sure that nothing could hurt them, the words didn't even have meaning. I'm crying now, but I think that it's because I finally understand what it means when 'they' say that the love you have for your child is like nothing you have ever felt before. Even if you believe that you have loved more deeply than anyone has ever loved, that feels like nothing compared to this. It's a bit surreal, and it's absolutely terrifying. I feel guilty for blowing off every single person who tried to explain this to me. I almost wish I could blame it on booze...

There is also nothing that compares to the first time you realize that this creature (for whom your love knows no bounds) is also smelly beast who will not be cleaning up after itself, and you alone are in charge of this diaper change.

Continuing in the theme of life altering moments, the first time someone screams into your ear at the very top of their lungs while simultaneously kicking you someplace tender and pulling your hair and you do NOT respond in kind, you just might be a parent.

If you realize that your back has seized up and one of your legs is completely numb because you have been sitting on the floor singing along to children's songs and trying to entertain someone who has no attention span for the last hour or so, you have just lived through every day of my life for the past 3 months.


My Life as a Baby Growing Device 02/13/09 (halfway there)

Well, here I am. Someplace I've always (secretly) wanted to be, and yet was not really prepared for - pregnant... oh, and 35 (almost 36)...

Since my mom had my first brother, I've thought that pregnancy was amazing. Through the years when I didn't want children of my own, I felt sad that I was going to have to miss out on pregnancy and birth. Now it's my turn, and I feel oddly compelled to lay it all out for ya'll - maybe it's the Benadryl talking, or the stress, or the lack of alcohol, random bad behavior or any of my other usual vices, but here it comes:

My life was crumbling around the edges a bit when Miss Lily Ruth was conceived. I mistook my early pregnancy symptoms for stress, and was imbibing a bit too much of the devil's juice on a nightly basis to combat said stress when I figured out that there was a baby in my body.

I quit drinking immediately - both coffee and alcohol - but miss them both desperately. I cheat with half-caff almost daily, and have taken up chocolate instead of wine (mostly).

I took a picture with my cell phone of the two home pregnancy tests that confirmed her presence, and still look at it regularly.

I had some nausea around weeks 5-7, but am now attributing this to the super-scary, ultra-green vitamins that I found at Central Market. I was supposed to take SIX of them a day, and by the evening, I was a bit green myself.

The first trimester exhaustion 'they' warn you about is real. One minute, you're fine, the next, you find yourself in the bulk section of Central Market about to cry because they don't have cots, and you still have to 1) finish making your selections 2) pay for them & 3) drive home before you can lie down. Never mind that you will no longer have any interest in cooking anything you just purchased and will instead choose fast food (again), and feel like a jerk for doing it.

What nobody really tells you (they just sort-of hint at) is that your body starts swelling almost immediately. You're like a puffed up version of yourself, but do not yet resemble a pregnant person. Very irritating. Oh yeah, the hormones kick in to high gear immediately as well, so LOTS of things are very irritating. Before your tummy is big enough to look cute, it is just big. Also, the baby is very very tiny, so even when you do start to pooch out a bit, it's probably just intestinal bloat. Ask my doctor. She'll tell you. At 14 weeks, I was soooooo proud of my baby belly until she reminded me of the actual size of my fetus at that stage (still real small), and informed me of intestinal bloat. Party pooper. The other side of this is that you'll probably be surrounded by well-wishers who are desperate to show their support by rubbing your belly. Let me tell you how awkward it is to know that your uterus is still down at the level of your pubic bone while folks pat what you now know to be your (bloated) intestines, and use baby-talk.

By the time Lily Ruth was 20 weeks old, I had seen her twice - 7 weeks (she was a blob w/ a heartbeat) & 11 weeks (an amazingly baby-shaped, fast-moving fetus!) - and started to feel her move, but I was still convinced that she couldn't be real. I mean, what else had gone right for me? How could something that great really be happening to me? When I saw her again, and the ultrasound tech said that she was a girl who was developing right on schedule, I was blown away! Her little nose, her perfect spine - are you serious!? Right there in my abdomen? It's all a bit surreal...

Another thing that nobody tells you is that pregnancy is slightly to fairly uncomfortable most of the time. All of your ligaments relax & therefore stop supporting you as they should, so your posture goes all whonky. At 5 1/2 months, I have to work at not waddling when I am tired. I'm fairly certain that before too long, I will not be able to resist the waddle - it will overtake me. Also, as your uterus grows, it crowds every other organ into a new location. In case you were wondering, there was no extra space in there to begin with, so the stretching begins... And while feeling Lily Ruth kick is amazing, it is also really really weird. I am so infatuated with her that I want the rest of the world to stop every time that I feel her move so I can focus on just her, but if she keeps going for a long time, eventually I start to feel vaguely nauseated, and a bit freaked out... but still obsessed with her every move!

I had a dream about meeting Lily Ruth. She was moving as usual, then I could see her foot push on my belly. Then I could see her spine push out. THEN, she showed up - I was holding her without having to go through labor - nice. She had soft light brown hair and a beautiful baby nose, but the rest of her details were fuzzy. I kept trying to focus on her features, but it was no use. I started to get frustrated, and then I woke up. Hmpfh. I guess I'll just have to wait... like everybody else...