Big Ass Baby

Have I mentioned that my baby is HUGE?? When Maggie sits next to other babies about her age, it looks like she's going to eat them for lunch. And she's not all that gentle, grabbing at their faces, pulling hair. Made one cry today.




We haven't been on a scale in a while, so I'm not sure what she's officially weighing in at, but she is just so SOLID. And heavy. It surprises people when they attempt to hold her or pick her up. "Oh," they say. "Oh, my." This wouldn't be as much of a problem if I could, a) eat food, and b) she was not such a mama's girl.

Maggie has all sorts of food allergies/sensitivities so I'm on a super-restricted diet. And she's just now, at 10 months, starting to get interested in solids, which I'm afraid to give her because of all the food issues, and her being a gaggy baby.

So, just when I should be gorging myself, eating with abandon, attempting to sustain this Big Ass Baby with just my boobs, I am instead STARVING to death. I'm so tired of being hungry all the time!!

Things I cannot eat: dairy, wheat, oats, citrus, chocolate, fried foods (that last one is because of my system). No yogurt, no ice cream, no yummy big buttery breakfasts, no oatmeal, no potato chips, no CHOCOLATE. It is pretty much impossible for me to go out to eat, and I need to eat all day, so my life is consumed with thinking about, preparing, lusting after, worrying about, and shopping for food.

Boring-ass food. Rice, rice pasta, rice cereal, rice milk, apples, veggies, nuts (though I'm starting to worry about those, too), and poultry. I've just added in avocado for fat and fun. Sometimes we have salmon.

Maggie's just recently started allowing others to hold her (besides me and Danny), but only my mom and my friend Amala. And only for so long. Not that they can physically hold for long anyway. Because she's HUGE!

I have to hold her quite a bit at home because the three-year-old fucks with her. And I wear her in the Ergo carrier when I grocery shop, when we hike, when I have to do stuff with Audrey in her class or at the park. But I can put her on the floor/ground a lot more now that she's almost crawling and is content to scoot around.

The more we are out and about, the more I have to wear her, especially to get her to sleep, then I have to wear her for her whole nap. And we are out-and-about a lot these days because OH MY FUCKING GOD have you ever been home all day with a three-year-old??? Especially when there is a younger sibling to torment??

You might think this is leading to a complaint about my back, but it is my ASS that is killing me. I got hemorrhoids when I was preggo with Audrey, but they didn't last too long after she was born. As soon as I got pregnant with Maggie, they came back. And after birthing all ten pounds of her, they got really bad. And stayed that way for a long time, since I was either sitting on my ass nursing or walking around wearing that big baby. They're not as bad now, but they're not gone either, and I still get no rest, of course.

All that being said, I don't really mind any of it, because how can you say "no" to this face?

G.U.I.L.T.

Being a first-born child of Scandinavian descent, I've always been really good at guilt. It got kicked up a notch after becoming a mom. But since having Maggie things have gone to a whole new level. I am tormented thinking about Audrey's birth and infancy, now that I'm doing things the "right way" with Maggie, and now that I've read WAY to many parenting books and articles in between. Poor Danny is very tired of hearing about the Permanent Psychological Damage I'm inflicting on our children.

If I was a mom that had really wanted to go back to work, or had no choice but to do so financially, I don't think I would be having this guilt. But somewhere along the way in my pregnancy I misplaced my brain. Majorly. I have no other way to explain WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED in my decision making.

Really, the reason must have been ego. "Heather, take this job, you'll be great, WE NEED YOU." Stupid ego! So I went against all my other feelings and took the job, which I already knew was a stressy, miserable one, even before adding a baby. I get SO mad thinking about all my energy and emotion that went into that place instead of into bonding with and being with my baby. Idiot!!! We never even crunched the numbers, just went along blindly with the mainstream notion of having to be two income. IDIOTS!

If I hadn't been working I could have gone to a new moms' group and gotten some much-needed support, probably would have figured out baby-wearing, might have avoided Audrey's major medical emergency because I would have been more tuned in, etc.

After having Maggie at home, I also feel tremendous guilt for the long, stressful hospital birth that was Audrey's entry into the world, plus all the crap they did to her in the hospital and having to drag her around to doctor appointments the first couple weeks.

Fortunately, I wasn't ever away from Audrey all that much, even though I was attempting to work 50%. But I don't like that I left her, even for a few hours with Danny and my mom a few times, when she was only a couple months old. After that, she was mostly with me in the office. When she was around nine months we finally got a nanny, but I don't feel as bad about that because she was older.

It's really the quality of my time with her that really bothers me. That super-shitty super-stressful job took so much of my mental and emotional energy and prevented me from fully immersing myself in the mommy-baby thing.

I'm sure lack of sleep and some PPD plays a part in this. It is a vicious cycle. That guilt starts up, causes me to lose sleep, then I'm fatigued and become even more consumed by these worries, causing me to lose more sleep, etc.

I know I should be happy and thankful to have two beautiful, healthy girls, a nice warm house, caring husband, etc., and I am, and when I'm well-rested, well-fed, had a bit of sunshine and fresh air, then the guilt subsides. And doing that job probably did help us get into this house, and did allow me to meet some folks who are now dear friends that I might not otherwise have met.

I think once Maggie is no longer in the baby-phase, things will improve also. But I also think I will forever live with a little hole in my heart about squandering my time with Baby Audrey for a bit of money and a line on my resume.

**Addendum: I think my feeling on this started out as guilt, but I am now in "grief." Hopefully I'll get to the "acceptance" stage soon.

Also, this is not a judgment on anybody else's situation, but about me not being honest with myself (and others) about what I wanted and did want want.

Snip snip

Tomorrow is the big day. Danny is going to the chop shop. This is a decision we have made--over and over. I'll feel all fine with it, but then the "what-ifs" start. What if we decide we do want three (or four)? What if something happens to Audrey or Maggie? What if something happens to me and Danny remarries? These are HORRIBLE THINGS TO THINK ABOUT. So I'm going to STOP thinking about them and just be OK with this decision.

It makes me happy AND sad to think about not ever being pregnant again. But mostly happy. My second pregnancy SUCKED and I heard from another mom (of three) that her pregnancies just kept getting worse. When I think about us maybe jumping the gun on this, I just remember being pregnant and then I'm on board with it again.

We are just such fertile people. We never even got to try making a baby because we get knocked up so easily. (So that's a bit of a bummer--would have been fun to get to work at it (although who am I kidding? When do I ever even WANT sex these days?).)

Even though the midwives told me I probably wouldn't get my period until the same duration of time had passed as when I got it back after Audrey, I didn't want to trust that/count on that. I think it will take at least 13 months again, but heard from a woman the other day who was also over a year with her first and TWO MONTHS with her second!! So, totally justified in my paranoia.

The main reasons we don't want more than two are environmental, financial and logistical. Danny especially is concerned about the "not contributing to population growth" reason. I'm down with that, too, but also share my mom's view that maybe we need some cool, intelligent, educated people reproducing at a higher rate to counter the wacko religious fundy overbreeders. Part of the overpopulation thing is thinking about just how many resources go into all the stuff it takes to raise a kid these days. And I'm really working on reducing our consumption of stuff around here (yet another blog forthcoming about that, I hope!).

Financial, of course, thinking about paying for private school (possibly) and college and all that above-mentioned stuff.

Logistically speaking, THESE KIDS ARE KICKING OUR ASSES!!! and we can't imagine juggling a THIRD. With just two, we can each pin one to the ground, wrestle one into a car seat, get them to sleep at night, muzzle their mouths, etc.

That said, I am feeling So. Baby. Crazy these days. SOB. I remember feeling the same way when Audrey was about the age Maggie is now. The thought of not having another pudgy, squishy, kissy bundle of joy makes me a little sad, as does not getting to watch all the big changes and development, not seeing another personality emerge. But, it is also making me soak up Maggie and Audrey right now, more than I would be otherwise. Everything else is less of a priority, AS IT SHOULD BE!

Of course, there's always adoption, too, and if we are ever in a position (family-wise and finance-wise) to do that, we will seriously think about it. There was just a hard-hitting series of articles in the paper here about the foster care system and it Broke. My. Heart. to read about what these kids, who have already suffered through so much, have to endure in the system AND in some of the foster homes themselves. And then I read an article about all the international refuge kids the US is supposed to take in and find foster homes for and how there are just too many right now. No shortage of kids needing help, and I don't expect those numbers to decrease any time soon.

So, all that being said, today, on the eve of The Procedure, as I call it, I'm feeling pretty OK about it. Danny summed it up as, Our odds of one of those Bad Things happening are a lot less than our odds of getting pregnant again. Also, I have been pregnant and/or breastfeeding for FOUR years, and will be for at least another year. I LOVE being a mom, and being home with the girls, and breastfeeding, and all the kiddo activities, but I'm beginning to feel little twinges of excitement when I think about getting a bit of my non-mom life back: hikes with girlfriends, BEER!, dinners out (w/out kids!), taking some classes.... I'll be ready for that next chapter, but for now am loving the current one.