Pregnancy Archives - Page 4 of 7 -

Goodbye Wedding Ring

July 22, 2012 by Farewell Stranger ·

This is a public service announcement for all pregnant women: Remove your wedding ring lest it be removed for you.

Yes, I learned this the hard way.

If you were on my Facebook page over the weekend you would have seen this drama unfolding, and here, just for kicks, is photographic evidence.

The ring as it is now:

Unfortunately the cut is right in the middle of the engraving on the inside. We had Qui Sono Felice (Here I am happy) engraved in our rings and poor Felice is now on her own, relegated to happiness without her neighbouring words. It was a clean cut, though, and should be able to be fixed when the time is right.

My finger was pretty angry afterwards:

Which is probably because holy mother of God does it ever hurt to have a ring stuck on a swollen finger. And it hurts worse to have it cut off. But I had tried everything else — my kitchen was a veritable arsenal of ring-removal tools, including olive oil, lotion, soap, Windex, aloe, saran wrap, dental floss, ice, a bowl of cold water – the list goes on and on — and nothing had worked. I think it just got more sore in the process.

I didn’t really see this coming, because I didn’t have to take off my rings last time and my fingers aren’t actually noticeably swollen. I only noticed because my finger was feeling irritated, and I suspect it had been too tight and stuck for a while.

I’m less sentimental about getting it cut off than I would have thought. Probably because the damn thing just needed to come off. Unfortunate, but there you go.

My husband, bless him, just wants to know if we’re still married.

Filed Under: Pregnancy · Tagged With: photos

I Am

July 11, 2012 by Farewell Stranger ·

I am determined and unsure
I wonder what’s in store this second time around
I hear babies crying when it’s silent at night
I see the girl I used to be
I want the gifts of patience and perspective
I am determined and unsure

I pretend I can’t
I feel it’s just the fear of failing
I touch his soft baby head the way it lives in my memories
I worry about the time long since passed
I cry thinking of the person I am not
I am determined and unsure

I understand I can’t control everything
I say I wish that weren’t so
I dream of laughter and satisfaction and joy
I try to see things as they really are
I hope this time will be different
I am determined and unsure

Connor at 3 weeks old sleeping on mama’s shoulder

This post is based on this I am poem template and is linked up with Mama Kat’s writer’s workshop. This isn’t at all what I thought I was writing about when I started, but there you go.

Filed Under: Motherhood, Postpartum depression, Pregnancy, Writing · Tagged With: expectations, perspective

Random Worries of a Pregnant PPD Mom

June 27, 2012 by Farewell Stranger ·

I’m not fretting too much about this stuff, but it’s taking up space in my brain so I thought I’d put it somewhere else.

I’m worried that if I spend 40 weeks totally exhausted (which seems to be the way this is going) I will be already tired when I go into the newborn-tired phase. And that’s not good for someone who’s attempting to avoid once again turning into a raging lunatic.
I’m not even sure I’m going to get to 40 weeks. If all my wishing for this to be over happens to work I won’t. Which isn’t how it works, I know. So maybe I’m just dreading 16 more weeks of feeling like crap.
I’m not sure if I’m up for all the baby stuff again. (I know. Too late, right?)
I’m worried I’m going to have another breech baby.
I’m a little concerned that if I do end up with another scheduled c-section I won’t be as okay with it as I’m trying to prepare myself to be.
I’m afraid I’ll be disappointed in myself and how I handle labour if I do get to experience that this time.
I’m afraid that, no matter what happens, the new-baby stuff will result in me being an absolutely awful mother to Connor.
I’m dreading all the icky postpartum stuff – sore boobs, sore incision, hair loss, night sweats. (Oh wait, I get night sweats now. (Thanks, meds.) So I guess I dread that getting worse. Or never, EVER going away.)
I’m worried that the recently-discovered marginal cord insertion issue I have is more of a concern than my midwife is making it out to be. (This is when the umbilical cord is inserted into the side of the placenta instead of the middle, and it can affect the baby’s growth. Anyone have any experience with that?)
Despite #9, I’m worried that I’m measuring small because my being on medication is making this baby small.

And bonus #11: I’m worried that this many worries is a sign that I get to deal with mucho anxiety this time as well as the potential for rage/depression/general craziness.

Sigh.

Linked up with:

Filed Under: Hard things, Postpartum depression, Pregnancy · Tagged With: admissions, antenatal depression, anxiety, expectations, lists

Now You Are Four

June 13, 2012 by Farewell Stranger ·

Dear Connor,

Today you turn four.

You came into our room at 5:00 this morning asking for a cuddle. Normally when it’s that early we try to get you back into your own bed, but I wanted a cuddle too so I let you stay. You fell asleep promptly, your warm little self pressed against me, and slept until 8.

The first thing you did upon waking up was run around the other side of the bed to hug your dad and thank him for your birthday cake. You knew he was making one because you had helped him bake it and, while you had no idea what it turned out like or just how cool a cake it was, that one action says so much about the boy you are becoming.

The cake and your appreciation for it

Every day you do something like that and I am reminded again of how much love a mother can have for her child. I was consumed by that today – just full of awe about how much you’ve changed my world. I understand now why my mother always reminisces on our birthdays about how and when we are born. It’s my birthday, I remember thinking. Why is it such a big deal to you?

But it is a big deal because it’s life changing for a mother, in even more profound ways than for the child I think.

In the last couple of days I’ve spent so much time thinking about when you were born. How we tried the day before to get the OB to turn you around, but how you stayed stubbornly breech. How we left the hospital knowing we were coming back very early the next morning to bring you into the world. How I called my mom and we went out for dinner and ate huge bowls of pasta because I hadn’t eaten all day while we’d been waiting to see if the external version was going to go ahead. I remember my mom sitting at that table with us. I remember how she looked at us and how she was excited knowing she would meet her first grandchild the next day. What I didn’t know at the time was just how much she knew about what was about to happen to us and how little I did.

Because, truly, I had no idea.

One of your first snow days

Since that day, so much seems to have blurred together as I try to navigate my way through a world that includes you. How you have taken lately to letting out high-pitched shrieks that threaten to deafen the lot of us. How you use the couch as a tumbling mat despite us asking you repeatedly not to. How often you tell either your dad or I that you “didn’t listen” today (which, by the way, we’re well aware of). How you want to do everything yourself whether it’s appropriate or not and how you can have the granddaddy of all meltdowns if we say no. How, after four years, you still don’t reliably sleep through the night.

Those are the little things about life with you that become big things, and sometimes those big little things overshadow the other stuff. And then you spontaneously say or do something that reminds me of just how big a heart you have and what an incredible soul you really are, and I am again filled with gratitude.

You’re missing your friends from home lately and my heart breaks at the thought that we’ve moved you away from these small people you’ve known all your life and who have helped shape the person you are. You miss Grandma and Grandpa, and while I hate that too I feel blessed that you have in my parents the grandparents I would have wished for you.

Lounging with Grandma

I worry that you’re bored and that we should be doing more to stimulate you. I want to encourage you to do the things you love to do, like painting, playing with Lego, and cooking and baking, because in those moments I see how your mind works and how the world becomes meaningful to you and full of potential. And yet I feel stuck a little bit, trapped between your smartness and short attention span and my overwhelming lack of energy right now.

Your bacon moustache

But I know this period in our life is short, and getting shorter by the day. In the fall you’ll have a new little brother – “my baby” you call him, and you’re so excited to meet him (even though you still sometimes think he’s a girl). This baby has always been “your” baby and in those words I see the big brother you’re going to be. Some days I wish we’d had another child sooner so you’d have a playmate like some of your friends do, but that’s not how it worked out. And maybe that’s for the best. You’ve had four years as the centre of our lives and you’re more than ready to take on your new role.

But for the next few months you’re still my baby, and I imagine — little brother or not — that is what you will always be.

I will love you always and forever,

Mama xx

Filed Under: Happy things, Letters to Connor, Motherhood, Pregnancy · Tagged With: family, gratitude, moments, my wish for you, sleep

Passing On Pink

June 5, 2012 by Farewell Stranger ·

Somewhere deep in our basement, in a box that’s still packed, is a small book. It’s pink, mostly, with an angelic baby face on the front. It’s about baby girls.

I bought this book when I was in my last year of high school. Some friends and I had gone to Vancouver to shop for grad dresses and I came across this book in a shop. I’m not sure what possessed my 17-year-old self to buy it, but I did, because I always assumed I’d have a girl and wanted to start soaking it in then and there.

I found that book again when we were packing to move last fall, and I paused for a moment when I saw it again. A short moment of regret ringed by a sliver of hope. At that point, Connor had been talking about his baby sister for months – before I was pregnant, before we had really started trying, and certainly before we had talked to him about the idea of a sibling. He brought it up unprompted and spoke of her as though she existed. “My baby sister.” He was so sure.

I was pretty sure too, because I always thought I’d have a girl. Not because I wanted a girl, but that’s just what I saw myself with. She felt like a real presence to me. I even wrote her a letter.

I was so sure.

When we found out Connor was a boy, I had a little cry. I couldn’t imagine myself with a boy, which is why we decided to find out at the ultrasound. I figured then that if we were having a boy I’d rather have time to adjust to the idea. Which was a good thing, and I did adjust. And then, of course, when he was born he was mine. He was so clearly the baby we were meant to have that I didn’t even think anything of it anymore.

And now here we are with number two.

I had sworn I wasn’t going to find out whether this one is a boy or a girl. I wanted a surprise. I wanted something to be “traditional” about the birth in case I end up with another c-section. I wanted something to be what I imagined this time and figured a delivery-room announcement of “It’s a… ” would do the trick.

But Connor was so sure “his baby” was a girl. He had my mom convinced. He had my sister convinced. He had me convinced.

And I worried that a delivery-room announcement of “It’s a boy!” would lead to a never-intended and always-regretted moment of disappointment.

So in the end I caved. We found out, in spite of the fiasco of not having the information provided to us as promised. (The universe didn’t take my husband’s determination into account when deciding to mess with us.)

So it won’t be a delivery-room announcement, and we won’t be keeping it a surprise. Instead, I will announce it here:

It’s a boy.

I know this child is just as much meant to be ours as Connor is. I know he will be a great big brother to his little brother. I know there are so, so many good things about this.

But just for a little bit, I’m going to grieve a baby girl I carry in my heart and thought would be in my life but who apparently doesn’t exist.

Filed Under: Hard things, Motherhood, Pregnancy · Tagged With: admissions, expectations, family, telling the truth