More than just a mother

I walked around in high heels for an hour today. The baby was sleeping, so I took the opportunity to walk around in heels and feel a little ladylike. Sure I had tomato sauce on my shirt (from dinner last night), I didn’t leave the house, my hair is a mess and my waist still isn’t anything to write home about, but still. For an hour I felt like being more than just a mother and that was actually really, really great.

The last weekend of April

It’s Monday and it’s quiet. The boy is sleeping in his Voksi, and I am typing away enjoying the quietness. My husband is at work and the girl is in kindergarten. The apartment is mine.

***

Last night I ordered a black dress. My uncle died Saturday. He had been ill for many years and he deserved to find peace, but he is the first family member from my parents’ generation to pass away in my family and I loved him dearly and didn’t want him to go.

We celebrated his 75th birthday on the 21st. He was tired, but he was so happy he was surrounded by his family. That Saturday was the day he met baby E for the first time and I am so happy he saw him. I would have been devastated had he not met him. My uncle’s daughter, my cousin, doesn’t have any children of her own so my uncle considered my children and my brother’s children a sort of grandchildren since he didn’t have any of his own.

***

Baby E has been crying a lot this past weekend. He has stomach aches just like his sister had them when she, like he is now, was just a couple of weeks old. Last night was particularly tough. When it was G, it was just J and I who had to endure the crying, but this time G is affected by it as well. It’s difficult for her to understand why her baby brother is crying and it makes her sad, it makes her cry. My desperation doesn’t make it any easier for her, and last night I had to assure her that I wasn’t mad at her brother. She was convinced my cursing was because I was mad at him, not because I felt desperate walking around with a crying child so clearly in pain.

***

We went to the park with the kids both Saturday and Sunday. G ran around and had fun and E slept in the stroller. 5 weeks after giving birth, family life was finally how I imagined it would be when 3 became 4. After weeks of breastfeeding problems, recovering from birth and getting used to being one more, family life suddenly, if only for a couple of hours, seemed perfect.

And with all the other things this weekend brough, I needed that. Sunshine and a happy family.

Baby E.

He’s brand new, not even a month yet, and at the same time it feels as if he’s been around forever.

Tonight at 9pm it’s four weeks since my contractions began. We had been watching In Treatment and just as we turned off the TV they began. 4 hours and 37 minutes later we were the proud parents of a baby boy. 9 hours after the first contraction, we returned to the apartment with our giant boy.

During the past four weeks we have seen weight gain, weight loss, breastfeeding problems, breastfeeding triumphs, sleep deprivation. And in the midst of it, the girl began kindergarten. Goodbye daycare with children under the age of three where my girl is one of the oldest and hello kindergarten where she is the youngest and where the big kids are very BIG.

I am sure I expected something completely different, but I am happy with what I got and what we have. I am just trying to go with the flow and see how we develop – all of us – every day. This week we have been out and about and it feels great. Even though it’s just a trip to the supermarket to get milk, it feels like an adventure, and getting out of the house again is wonderful (the first three weeks were basically sore nipples and breastfeeding non stop).

Days are still chaotic and my level of tiredness in the evening scares me, but the sun is shining and tomorrow he is four weeks old, and I have decided that we’re keeping him. He’s too good to give away…

It’s a…

Boy.

Born 24th of March 01:37.

4700 grams and 55 centimetres.

We are all well and adjusting to being a family of four.

(And I am still trying to understand just how big he actually was when he came out).

Countdown…

Pregnancy is countdown from start to finish, waiting. First you wait to tell people, then you wait for your ultrasound and the first glimpse of your baby, then you wait for your belly to show, then you wait for your belly to be big enough to buy your first pair of maternity pants, you wait for your first midwife appointment. You wait, you wait, you wait.

I am still waiting. At 41 weeks and 2 days the baby still hasn’t expressed any wish to come out and say hello to us.

The girl arrived four days past her due date. It was a Wednesday. The day before I had a couple of contractions, but I was unsure if it was anything. I woke up Wednesday morning at 3 and knew something was happening. By 12:43 she was out. It was fast and unrealistic because it was nothing like I had expected it to be. I had expected days of contractions and long hours at the hospital and giving birth was nothing like this.

Today I am 9 days past my due date. I have Braxton Hicks contractions, but that’s it. There is absolutely nothing indicating an imminent birth. As I dropped off the girl at daycare one of the helpers asked me when I would be induced. Sunday, I answered. “Good luck,” she whispered and upon seeing my face “I am sure it will happen before that.” I thanked her – turning my back to her so she couldn’t see the tears well up in my eyes – and ran out the door.

Lots of people are induced, I know, and somehow I still se it as a failure. I feel as if my body isn’t able to do the one thing its supposed to: give birth.

I have a friend who’s been struggling to conceive for two years. She became pregnant via fertility treatment recently, but lost the baby. I have friends who are still single and wondering whether the dream of a husband and kids will be nothing but just that:  a dream. My brother and his wife dreamed of four or five kids. They have two – one biological and one adopted – because neither nature nor economy was ever on their side.

I am a giant arse for feeling like I do. GIANT. I am the luckiest person alive. I wanted a second child, I am carrying it, it is healthy and kicking. My daughter can’t wait to become a big sister. She can’t wait to watch the baby play with all her old toys. I have a husband who is looking forward to becoming a father again and to loving me even more than he does already for giving him a bigger family.

I am a giant arse for feeling like I do. GIANT. But I am being honest. The idea of having to be helped, the idea that my body can’t do this on its own makes me sad, makes me cry. It’s stupid, but nonetheless the truth.

I apologise for being quite. See you on the flip side…

33 years, 1 day

For a long time 33 scared me. I know it’s ridiculous, but it seemed old, it made me feel old. 33!

People laughed at me when I told them, but it turns out that lots of my friends have a “magic number” hidden somewhere in their thirties. For more than one it’s 35, but whether it’s 33, 35 or 38, it’s there. Is that normal? Is it normal to get to a point where you don’t feel young anymore, but you don’t exactly feel old either. I know this might sound stupid, but I think the scary thing about turning 33 was the feeling I was stuck between generations – my own and my parents’. Does it even make sense?

My mum was 35 when she had me. Between us are 35 years where others have come and gone, had children, lived lives. But for me there are just two generations: mine, the kid, and my mum’s, the adult. And despite my mum still being 35 years ahead of me, I kept seeing myself as her when I looked at 33: an adult, soon to be mother of two, owner of an apartment and a mortgage. Behind me was all the things kids and young people do – left behind – and I was no longer able to reach back and grab any of it. I guess I felt 33 was me becoming an old fart.

33 was good though. My family came Sunday and we feasted on chevre chaud, gravad lax and the traditional layered birthday cake with raspberries. We drank tea and coffee and the kids – the girl, my nephew and my niece – ran around squealing, laughing, having fun. It was wonderful. And yesterday the girl and J woke me up with presents and kisses and time to start the morning nice and easy which we usually don’t have time for. All through the day people texted, emailed, phoned. They remembered me, congratulated me, they made me feel loved and – old or not – thankful I am surrounded by them.

And so today I am 33 years and one day. The baby is kicking and my due date is a fortnight away. 33 is going to be a good year, I can feel it. It’s going to be so many things 32 wasn’t. It might scare me along the way, but when it does I need to look back and remind myself of how well it started.

3 weeks, 1 day

I remember counting days and weeks, always knowing just how big baby was and what vegetable it resembled. That was last time.

This time I haven’t been able to tell people how far along I have been or what the baby have weighed.

That is until now.

Tomorrow is 37 weeks. In other numbers – the countdown ones – that’s just 3 weeks to go. If our baby is born tomorrow it will be full-term, not a preemie. I am SO ready to not be pregnant anymore. I am the size of a whale, my clothes don’t fit and I can barely tie my shoes. Last time I was this pregnant it was summer, all I had to do in the morning was to throw on a dress and a pair of ballerinas. This time around I have to dress for the cold. I wear tights every single day and I am sick and tired of it – and of scratching my stomach all day long.

But it’s not just about not being pregnant anymore. I can’t wait to meet the baby. I can’t wait to find out if it’s a girl or a boy. I can’t wait for G’s life as a big sister to begin. And oddly enough I can’t wait to find out that newborns can do absolutely nothing but eat and cry (others would have written “eat, sleep and cry”, but given our past record with newborns and sleeping, I am leaving it out) and that I have to support its head for weeks (?), months (?).

All in all I can’t wait for another life to begin. The baby’s. Mine as a mother of two. Our’s as a family of four. It’s a life, it’s a human being, it’s my child. And it’s just around the corner…

And that was the end of 2012… (sort of)

I have had my last day at work. Probably my last day of work in 2012, which is weird and wonderful at the same time.

We spent the last week in Norway. 3/4 of the party skiing, and 1/4 cuddling up inside, knitting and baking pancakes and occasionally dozing off on the sofa – and also eating and awful lot of snacks.

I am 35+1, which means I have 5 weeks to go before my due date. I feel huge and heavy and there’s no doubt that the next couple of weeks on the sofa will do me good. A guy called Braxton Hicks is reminding me daily that I need to slow down, so I will try to do just that.

It feels weird that while 2012 has just begun, it has already come to an end – workwise – for me. I can’t wait to see what – or who – it holds, and while I wait I will try to finish the white baby vest I started after the yellow one. I’m still not sure a boy (if we end up with that) can wear yellow – or white for that matter – but those were the colours I had. If it’s a boy, let’s hope he’s got dark hair like his mother and isn’t blonde like his sister, ’cause then yellow might not be the best thing…