Anticipation

Nothing new to report.  Tomorrow starts Week 23.  We are two-thirds of the way there.  I was supposed to have an ultrasound this Friday, Dec 18^th, but we were able to switch it to next Tuesday, Dec. 22^nd.  So now our ultrasound and checkup are only a week apart, rather than 11 days apart.  (The doctors like the ultrasound and regular checkup to be as close together as possible, but because of the holidays, there are fewer scheduling options.  Our next regular appointment is December 29^th).

When I was pregnant with Chiara, people would ask me if I was excited.  I hated that question.  In fact, that’s when I stopped answering the phone, which has been on vibrate ever since. 

Last time around, I just didn’t know what to expect with a baby, so it was hard to be excited.  When we got our first box of baby hand-me downs from Jeff & Liz (not their real names), I had to stop halfway through the sorting.  Somewhere in my belly was a thing that would fit into these clothes.  Were they tiny or huge?  I couldn’t tell.  So I put the box in a corner and cried instead.

Then there was the Internet search for doula information.  There was page after page after page of mother this/mother that, mother mother mother.  And I thought, “What does my mother have to do with any of this?  When does it get to be about me?”  That’s when I realized that it was all about me.  I was the mother they were talking about.  So I shut down my computer, sat in the corner on top of a box of tiny huge clothes and cried some more.

There were other things to cry about: like realizing that there is no space of time between when the kid is born and when you have to take care of her.

To be fair, there were some things to laugh about (things that wouldn’t be so funny now).  Like, during our newborn care class when we had to give mouth to mouth to a plastic doll.  We were instructed to tap the baby’s foot and say, “Baby!  Baby!  Can you hear me?”  (OK – that still makes me laugh).  And we laughed when Matt, in his performance of the Baby Heimlich Maneuver, would whack the doll on the back of the head and let its forehead smack on the table.  (Less funny now).  And then there was the time we had to dress the resuscitated doll and Matt managed to get half the shirt on right side out and the other half on inside out.  I laughed so hard (and so loud) the teacher had to stop the class. 

But this time is different.  I am SOOOO excited.  I can’t wait.  This time when I opened the box of hand-me-downs from Jeff and Liz (still not their real names), and sorted through the clothes that had gone from them to us, back to them, to Jeff’s buddy from high school and back to us, (are those just hand-me-backs?) I oohed and aaahed and found a little drawer for them. 

This time around, I don’t even think we are going to take newborn care classes.  For one thing, I plan on being too sleep deprived to be able retrieve any newly acquired information and for another, if it’s stuff I already know, why take a class on it?

This time, it’ll be different. 

And that’s where we’ll have to stop for today.  I always write these epic blog posts and I have realized that all the cool kids write short and pithy posts.  So you’ll just have to wait until tomorrow to see how I envision life with a preschooler* and newborn twins.

* I know she’s not in preschool yet but somehow I can’t call someone who reminds me to take my vitamins a toddler.

So much for short posts.

© 2010 Janine Kovac