I started the day seated on our toddler-sized potty chair and puking into the cold toilet. The bright side? My two-and-a-half-year-old’s buns have been nowhere near the strategically placed chair, so it’s been unused (and we can pretend, germ-free) for over a year now. Apparently, my already-pooching tummy hadn’t gotten the memo that we’re at thirteen weeks now. In my pregnant world, that usually means relief from the “morning sickness.” This is such a misnomer. Again, in my pregnant world, the word “morning” means nothing. The term “sickness” can most accurately be interpreted as a complete aversion to anything under 400 calories and a craving for all things dairy and/or carb combining to result in the need to eat every hour, on the hour in order to stave off the next round of nausea. An even simpler explanation? Double or triple my typical daily caloric intake. The unavoidable and unappreciated yield? New and quite pronounced full-body jiggles by week six. It’s true. This was a shocking and humbling discovery my first time on this crazy ride called pregnancy; this time around, however, I didn’t even blink when I was told at six weeks that my stomach was “already protruding.”
You think that’s bad? How about the impending threat of tears – anytime, anywhere. I specifically remember being hunched over my ballooned stomach bawling hysterically at a rain forest preservation infomercial five years ago with my first. Today’s triggers? My Pandora station’s random choice of Michael W. Smith’s tune, Friends. My eyes welled, my throat closed and it was full-on ugly cry as I immediately looked up childhood friends on Facebook and sent out embarrassingly cheesy messages about how much I loved them. Oh, and I begged them to pass my love and appreciation on to their mothers, as well. Yes, I thought it was bad five years ago … I think it’s getting worse.
However, as I find myself here at week thirteen of this ten month labor of love to welcome Baby Frenchie Number Four, I find myself trying to concentrate on appreciating the soon-to-decrease level of mobility I do have, while I still have it. Oh! And, perhaps even more importantly, remembering to sleep flat on my stomach every single night I can knowing I’ll miss it even more than my nightly glass of wine those last few months.
So, in case you were wondering, I changed five poopy diapers today. I recently realized there is a good chance we will have three (!!!) in diapers come 2014. I made a breakfast casserole, did three loads of laundry, edited three photo shoots, replaced bed sheets, administered at least four time-outs, balanced the budget, read I-Don’t-Know-How-Many books, watched Sid the Science Kid and braided my daughter’s hair on three different occasions. I went in to perform the goodnight ritual: book, song, hug, kiss, tuck-tuck, hug, kiss, drink, hug, kiss, “good NIGHT” four different times for two different children. (My third child decided to give me a break and a good rocking did the trick.) Somehow, despite, (amidst?), maybe even because of this beautiful chaos that is my life, I did glance into an empty room containing nothing more than a disassembled, hand-me-down chewed rail crib, the brown-ribbed rocker that’s held all three of our children (often swaying through the night and into the morning), and a few pastel swaddle blankets I’ve dug out and tossed in the room to join the wait of all things tiny and sweet. I even paused for a moment at a new set of pregnancy and labor books I’ve ordered from the library and stacked on my nightstand – a few pages may even already be dog-eared. 😉 Really, as much as I don’t always “like” being pregnant, I “love” the birth part. (Cue those hopped-up-hormonal-tears …) I know what it’s like to reach down and feel the dewy warmth of someone I feel like I’ve waited my whole life to meet. I know what it’s like to feel the quivers of first breaths and the completely yielded grip of a tiny fist around my finger knowing my heart has just gripped its everything.
Okay, forget the tears – cue the ugly-cry-waterworks.
On that note, I’ll raise my glass of milk in a toast to this beautiful, uncomfortable, embarrassing, miraculous, life-changing labor of love we mommas have been entrusted to. Thirteen weeks down, twenty-seven (give or take) to go …
How about the rest of you pregnant mommas out there: what beautiful things do you love about your expanding belly? And, PLEASE tell me someone else out there has suffered some sort of embarrassment due to outrageous out-of-control pregnancy hormones! I’d love to hear about it, if you have …
About the author: Allison French is the mother of Ellie, Tristan, and Judah and one-in-the-oven living in south Kansas City with her hubby of seven years, Chris. Except for her college years in the Little Apple of Manhattan, Kansas, she’s always lived in Kansas City and is proud to be able to confidently navigate the 435 loop and beyond. She taught first and fifth grade in Blue Valley for six years but with the birth of her third munchkin, took some time off from teaching to establish her photography business, Allison Corrin Photography. Between dirty diapers, noisy time-outs, piled-up dishes and the never-ending laundry, she also blogs their everyday adventures and musings of motherhood over at Life With the Frenchs. An ideal start to the day for Allison would include getting up while it’s still dark (and quiet), a good cup (or four, when she’s not pregnant) of creamed-up coffee, a lit scented candle, reading one of the (at least three) books she’s always in the middle of, a little blogging followed by a long run or dancing at her Jazzercise class and would conclude with baking something sweet … and then eating it.
I love this post! Thanks, Allison. My husband said he was embarrassed watching Father of The Bride with me when I was pregnant with my first. I laughed and cried so hard that it really got awkward. I always knew that movie was funny, but I no idea HOW funny or how sad until my emotions were out of control! 😉
Congrats on your fourth! Thank you for sharing your experience. My embarrassing moment was getting into a larger-than-life debate over some political issue on facebook. I have a general policy of using fb just for fun (and I rarely debate tooth-and-nail), but my post-pregnancy hormones took over in a big way. I sense a theme, though – pregnant mommas might want to take heed and steer clear of public social networking while hormones are running on high (read: potential regrets) 🙂
I burst into tears while watching Findind Nemo at the tail end of pregnancy with my son. Nemo was a boy, I was carrying a boy. Nemos mom died trying to protect him. So on and so forth. I swear my husband looked at me like I’d instantly grown a third head, explaining “you’ve seen this movie at least a dozen times!” But it didnt matter. It was the first time watching and knowing EXACTLY how Nemos mom would have felt in that situation. Its ok though, karma has a way of working things out. Less than a week later I caught him getting weepy over a Google commercial where the dads phone was lost and it had all of the photos of his son growing up on it. They are just as sappy as we are sometimes. 😉