Losing September’s Monkey- September 29, 2013
One month. Tomorrow marks one month until my due date with Baby 2.0. I’ve had an extremely uneasy feeling hanging over me in recent weeks. I can’t explain this obnoxious monkey on my back. He’s a rotten, hairy little beast whispering to me that I’m somehow failing and will never be ready for this baby. This monkey enjoys making sure I feel overwhelmed and unprepared to leave work and be home. He’s the reason my husband has been putting his arm around me in the kitchen and reminding me it will all be okay.
Every moment of my October is planned and scheduled out so I can fit everything in I need and want to do before my October 30 due date. Charlotte’s Halloween costume is bought, her birthday party is scheduled a few weeks early. I’m sending out invitations this week. I’m adding to my work list and taking time to develop a plan for my departure.
I got an welcome and much needed reprieve from my worries this weekend. My sister came to town and threw a brunch in honor of Baby 2.0. Just family and close girlfriends. I felt like the luckiest person on the planet to have my mom and sister plan a lovely party for me. I couldn’t stop smiling, chatting, sipping coffee and eating fresh made doughnuts at one of my favorite coffee/lunch spots.
The best part of the weekend? Taking pictures with my sister, knowing that Saturday was likely the only day in our lives we will ever be together in person with round bellies to bump and pregnancy symptoms to share. We won’t be back together until after my baby is born. It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime chance to snap these pictures. I look at these and my heart swells up. It knocks the monkey off my back like it had never been there.
Me at 35.5 weeks. Julie at 24.5 weeks.
This weekend and these pictures are the reminder I need not to be stressed or dread this month. Instead, they are the reminder that this October is the last month of my life as the mother of one child. The last month as a family of three. I’m choosing to embrace all the excitement, good or bad. Let’s go October. It’s gonna be a good one. Take that, monkey!
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Oh sweet Amy, soon to be mother of 2.0! Just know that you are NOT alone! I remember feeling all the things you are feeling. I was TERRIFIED that I wasn’t ever going to love another child like I love my little Miss Hollin. I was TERRIFIED that I wouldn’t be able to handle two. I was TERRIFIED that the second baby was going to ruin the dynamic in my house and family. I was TERRIFIED that I was not ready and didn’t know how to sleep with a toddler in house and a baby. I was TERRIFIED. Looking back (and you will too) I laugh at my fears because it is amazing how one person can be spread and expanded in so many ways. I am able to do things I never thought I could. The best part though, regardless of what i do or don’t do, is hearing them giggle and play as they get older! Just today I heard deep belly gut laughs and they were in Hollin’s room alone. There is truly no better sound. Although it took a few years to develop that, my mind will never forget the enduring looks Hollin had for Johnny when he was still a baby.
The best advice I can give you is to enjoy each day now, as the new days will have new adventures, new smiles, new laughter and love!
I’m not sure if this’ll make you feel better or worse, but even if you were ready, you wouldn’t be ready. My personal belief is that so many new mothers succumb to post-partum depression because we struggle to accept that life with a new baby is, quite frankly, almost completely outside of our control. Of all my kids, John’s babyhood (he’s my #2 kid) was the absolute worst because I thought I had learned with Will how to control my life with a kid. I struggled so much with John… struggled to be ready for him, struggled to make him sleep through the night, to transition to solids, to wean, hit milestones when Will did, etc. I struggled to anticipate challenges and take care of the household and keep everything moving. Going to a one kid household was simply a shock. Going to two kids, for me, was a struggle. As a direct result, I was a raging bitch ALL THE TIME. John’s okay. He’s a happy kid. Definitely the sweetest of the three, but the more I tried to control and ‘be ready’ for all outcomes, the worse I felt and the worse the family felt.
On the other hand, The BEST babyhood was Kat’s (my #3) and I believe it was entirely because I had no pretensions of ‘being ready’ when she was born. I knew I wasn’t ready, and more importantly, I knew that I COULDN’T be ready and didn’t even WANT to be ready. It took two kids to teach me that my job wasn’t to have all my bases covered. It was just to be there and enjoy the game. There will be pop flies and balls that go uncaught. That doesn’t matter as long as everybody (and for me, the only people that counted as ‘everybody’ were my immediate family) was having fun. When Kat came, I knew that our family dynamic was going to change and that there was no way to predict how it would change. I knew that there wouldn’t be elaborate birthday parties for Will and John that March or even clean laundry some days. It didn’t matter. We enjoyed the Hell out of our impromptu immediate family birthday celebration for both boys and we did it wearing dirty clothes.That’s what’s important: Having fun and being happy. I finally learned that those two things have absolutely nothing to do with being ready and that my happiness and my kids’ happiness had nothing to do with what we did, but our attitudes when we did it. I hope that you enjoy the Hell out of baby #2. Let go. There is no room for Type A in multi-kid parenting. Fly by the seat of your pants and enjoy every minute. I’m so excited for you. AND I’m putting my bet in that it’s a boy!
Thanks Katie! That is very helpful!
A boy, huh? Okay! We’ll see!
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