Labels: baby, motherhood

What being a parent has been like

I’d love to write some highly descriptive prose detailing life as a mom, but the job itself allows little time to write, to eat, to apply deodorant even. And so, you will have to do with this point-form list of what 6 weeks of being a mom has been like for me:
Being a parent sometimes means:
- Realizing that a full night’s sleep is a hazy concept I vaguely remember and may one day in the far, far future return to
- Learning to operating on sleep increments of 20 minutes to 3 hours throughout the night
- Learning, the hard way, to keep one diaper underneath her when removing the other, or else she’ll pee all over me and the change pad and her clothes
- Making breakfast, lunch and dinner with the use of one hand (the other is occupied holding the baby)
- Finding the nutritional value in frozen meals, meals from a box and meals in the form of replacement chocolate shakes
- Makeup routine goes from a leisurely 15 minutes staring at my own reflection to frantically applying some undereye concealer (to hide the sleepless night) while singing lullabies to the bored baby lying on the change table beside the mirror before she starts crying
- Taking naps with a beautiful baby girl curled up on my chest, smelling like baby and breathing her little baby breaths, drifting off with me making her little baby sounds
- Escaping the beauty of a shower by myself, the smell of lavender body wash and the feel of warm steam, to the blaring reality that my baby is screaming in hunger on the other side of the door while my poor husband tries to soothe her
- Choosing outfits based not on what suits me, what’s stylish or even what’s comfortable but based upon which make for easy nursing
- Switching outfits numerous times a day because I smell like milk she has spit back on my shirt or spit up on my pants
- Realizing that my baby has not read the baby behaviour books and does not know she is “supposed” to enjoy her soother and “supposed” to be sleeping at night in 4 or 5 hour increments
- If anyone else were to wake me numerous times from slumber crying that they were hungry, I would likely slug them. But this baby gets a free pass, night after night, because she is beautiful and dependent on my reciprocated love
- Getting immense joy and pride, equal to graduating university or finishing a race, from things as simple as her smile or her coos
- Living in Lululemon pants
- Remembering to shower only because the grease in my hair is too much to ignore, not because I remember how many days it’s been since my last one

Labels: baby, motherhood

I realize I haven’t written much about the actual experience of being pregnant. At least, not publicly. It’s very easy to tell people about back aches and sore hips when they ask how the pregnancy is going. The truth is, there are physical discomforts and I sometimes let them detract from this experience, but on the whole, I love being pregnant. It is cliché to describe it as such, but I feel like a walking miracle. There is something completely fantastic and almost mythic going on in my belly, and I feel very honoured and lucky.
It amazes me to think about how minute the very possibility of conception is, how the circumstances have to be just perfect. And it happened. And then as cells divided and she attached to my womb and her parts fused and formed, she thrived. She kept growing and my body, my actual body, fed her and fostered her as she survived the first trimester.
For those of you who’ve never been pregnant, the first trimester is a whole lot of hesitation. It is tentative. I never knew if the pregnancy would last until I got to the end of it. I couldn’t quite celebrate it until week 13, and yet I had to succumb to a body that needed more food, more water and made me feel permanently seasick. I was making a big commitment, physically, to a baby you don’t yet know will survive.
Of course I gave it my all, took my naps, drank my water and obeyed my cravings for moose meat, cheeseburgers and lemonade. And I made it to week 13 with the first hints of a baby bump.
Since then I have fully embraced pregnancy. I am an incubator, an oven. I live my life but my body belongs to the little girl inside me.
I am so glad we decided to find out the baby’s sex. I was so sure it would be a boy, I’m not sure why. Just maternal instinct (gone wrong!) I guess. I envisioned taking him to hockey practice and had already bought little blue onesies. Then I lay on the ultrasound bed in September with the cold goopy stuff on my abdomen and watched the technician examine the baby’s features, measuring parts to make sure it was healthy. Then he got to the lower half, pointed out bent legs, shins, and then of course I noticed what was between them. It was very clear we were having a little girl, and I started to cry as he continued measuring her abdomen, her brain and her heart. My girl.
Now I can feel her moving around in me, kicking her arms and legs against the walls of my stomach skin. It feels just like someone poking or flicking me, only the sensations come from inside. I love waking up with a smile to her little kicks, and settling down with a good book on the couch only to burst out laughing at the hyper baby conducting a 3-ring circus in my belly.
I am surprised at my swollen belly when I catch sight of my reflection and love rubbing my hands over the skin as it stretches further and further. I love feeling what side the baby is lying on, and I am full of anticipation to meet her. I can’t wait to find out what she looks like, what her personality is, how she’ll smell and what she’ll sound like. I have a little less than 4 months to go, and I am full ready to get growing, be round, eat more and put my feet up in lieu of being busy.
My pregnancy is like being a front-row audience member at the world’s greatest show: watching this baby’s growth through the veil of my belly, waiting for the moment when she is revealed to the world.

Labels: baby

Once upon a time in this funny little place called Ross River, I was having a temper tantrum and was angry at the world, including the fact that yet another month was going by without being pregnant. There’s not a heck of a lot to do here, so each month sans fetus was like “OMG, could we ACTUALLY be here for 2 years without a bambino?” Dread!
So I took a home pregnancy test out of anger, just to confirm to myself that I was out of the running, so I could move on and focus on other things. Other things like dinner. Or online movie rentals. Fascinating.
I took the test, waited an ADD 5 seconds and when I saw no second line I tossed the test and stormed off to clean windows or something. Then one distraction led to another. That night before going to bed I remembered the test and felt sheepish at being so baby crazy and frustrated. I tried to be all Zen and remind myself that my time would come and yadda yadda yadda. So I brushed my teeth and pulled the test out “just to make sure.” I took out the pink stick and saw a really faint second line.
“Hmm, what does THAT mean?” I wondered to myself. So I ran with my little pink cell phone out onto the back porch where no one could hear me and I called one of my best friends.
“There’s a second line but it’s like really light. What does that mean?”
She said if there was anything but one line, that probably means there’s something funky going on. We decided I’d take another test first thing in the morning. It was one of those digital ones where it just reads either Pregnant or Not Pregnant. I got it out of the package and all ready for my morning pee the next day.
I woke up at 8:00 to get ready for school, and hid the test in the bathroom drawer while I let it sit for the requisite three minutes after peeing on it. Unfortunately, while I was letting it process, one of our house guests who had popped in the night before from Whitehorse had taken advantage of the available shower. I made breakfast, got dressed, put together some snacks I could eat during the morning, and pretended to read a magazine while I waited FOR-EV-ER. She finally came out, dangling a towel over her hair and closed the guest room door. I opened the drawer and read the words PREGNANT. I don’t remember what my immediate thoughts were (kind of anti-climactic, sorry!) because I had to be quiet. So I raced back out onto the back porch, redialed my friend and told her the results. We both got giddy, I told her not to tell a soul, and I cut the conversation short so I could tell the father!
I have a stockpile of greeting cards on hand, so I pulled out a “Congratulations on your baby” card. Inside, I wrote, “Are you ready to be a Daddy?” and signed my name. I walked into our bedroom as he finished dressing for work. I closed the door, sat on the bed and told him there was something I needed to tell him.
“I feel it is best expressed in this card,” I said. I gave it to him and watched his face as he opened the envelope and read, then re-read the words.
“Seriously? For real?”
I nodded and cried, and he hugged me and we laughed and repeated over and over again, “Wow, we’re going to have a baby!”
We called my mom, my other best friend, his best friend and parents and told them our crazy news, cautioning them to keep it to themselves as we wanted to share and celebrate but be weary “in case anything happens.” I told my Dad and siblings a few days later on Father’s Day. Clearly, my “present” kicked everyone else’s butts.
And now we’re in the fourth month, my belly is swelling and I am just way too excited!!

Labels: baby, family, Ross River