Great Expectations: Rebecca @ 34 Weeks

This week is my 4 year-old's birthday, and watching her while this tumbling baby due in six more weeks keeps growing (seriously, he's perfecting his back handspring in there) has me thinking, not unexpectedly, about my first pregnancy and birth, and the differences now and then.

Around four years, two months ago, I was living a bit of a different life. I had been married two years, had no children, lived in a smaller, somewhat calmer and more affordable city, and I was having the maternity time of my life. I was lucky enough to have a very charmed pregnancy without many issues, and did pretty much all of the things the magazines talk about: I took walks every day after work, still happily wore heels pretty much everywhere (I like heels, please don't judge), daydreamed about baby as I perused our registry, and took a break sometimes for a chemical-free pedicure. Hubby and I thoroughly enjoyed the birthing class series offered by our hospital where we appeared twice a week for a few weeks, learned about all the options available on our hospital's perinatal tour, and I read books and websites exploring all the ways to have a great pregnancy and birth and forwarded it all to my mate, who enthusiastically responded to each and every email (he's a keeper; I reciprocated by going to a few dozen movies he wanted to see while we were expecting).

The most difficult thing that happened during that time was a challenge at work over paid family leave it was a small office, and our leader did not feel that having a baby benefited the company. But I had amazing, supportive coworkers, and we all worked together for an outcome that we felt benefited everyone and still stands today. And when it came time, I got to have the birth I wanted. I labored at home for eight hours, showed up at the hospital with the calm of someone who has no idea what's coming (carrying my own purse and marching up to the desk like I was looking for the vending machine), and in four hours, we had a baby girl in our arms. Lucky, blessed, prepared, flexible we were incredibly grateful but clearly could not fully appreciate the comparative ease with which she had arrived and we had become a family.

Fast forward a few years: now in my third pregnancy, we live in a busy city that seems to construct hurdles to daily life just for the fun of it, there isn't much time to re-read maternity books, I carry my 23lb toddler around until I feel so much pressure in my belly that she must be put down, I see the inside of a real movie theater about twice per year, and I clearly (and I mean clearly) remember how my last (also non-medicated, also in a friendly hospital with great, supportive people around me) labor and birth felt. I wouldn't have had it any other way, but yes it hurt. And like many women, I don't often (or ever) ask for help.

It all leaves me in a bit of a quandary.

Don't get me wrong, I love living in a city it fits my personality, my need for a diverse community, and my desire to give our children an experience similar to my own upbringing. And I love my family just a few minutes with the kids together provides more entertainment that you can imagine, and I am able to participate as they develop and grow has been its own wonder of the world. However, it all has its challenges.

Being an only child myself who was several years older or younger than the other kids in my extended family, I really have no personal experience with what I'm doing right now: parenting two and almost three kids. But I do know how it translates in real time, or I'm figuring it out, minute-by-minute. For example, these days when I read pregnancy magazines in my doctor's office, which like most magazines are a carefully pieced puzzle of product endorsements and advertising, I think more about the prices of those items than what they could do for my baby in fact, I think about money all the time. Actually to be fair, I can't be thinking about money all the time I haven't had a full, uninterrupted thought in about... wait for it... four years.

When I'm not thinking about money, I'm talking about dinosaurs and princesses, or how many diapers day care needs, or explaining to my oldest daughter why her little sister (now 15 months old) cannot play with play dough (yes she'll eat it, even if it doesn't look like food to you, honey). Then I go back to talking with Hubby about the family schedule, or politics (we dig politics in our house), or money. We had a conversation in the kitchen after the kids went to bed just last night about how we expect a substantive conversation to last all day we begin while we're getting dressed, pause to get everyone out the door, then continue to talk in the elevator (60 seconds maximum), load our lot into the car, pause for the day perhaps emailing continuations when we have time, keep going later while someone cooks dinner and the other makes sure no one is eating play dough, pause for bedtime, and then if we are both still awake, finish our talk by midnight. If I want to have a full thought, I take a break, which because I sign away my prenatal massage and pedicure funds to preschool now, means taking a trip by myself to go grocery shopping. To be fair, I really like grocery shopping -- but it ain't no mani-pedi.

What I really want to be thinking about right now, six weeks away from baby number three, is getting ready for baby number three. I want to make time for yoga; take a hike through the park, meditate on the aforementioned fear of birth hurting (news flash -- I say to myself -- it will. You just have to get ready.), or even just remember to stretch before I get into bed at night. The truth is peace is what you make it yoga is still yoga, even if children are crawling over my warrior pose, and I can think plenty during my morning commute, and no one is stopping me from doing some breathing at night before I go to bed, or for taking a little bit of time to myself after all, Hubby always makes room for me when I ask for it it's a pretty mom-tastic habit, however, to not ask for things for yourself. These are choices I make, and habits I cultivate after all, the kids aren't stressed out when they're being kids, in fact they have a blast at it. And the good habits may be harder to stick to than the bad ones, but they will definitely be worth it at least I think so. I'll let you know.