Due Dates and Expectations

Just as a warning, this post is more for my benefit than anyone else's. It's kind of a brain-dump that I've been needing to get out.

Yes, this post should have been yesterday since that was my due date. But yesterday was not my best day. I had Brent take a picture of me last night to mark the first time I've ever made it to my due date. In the first picture he took, he captured my feelings without me realizing it. In the next picture, I have a fake smile on. Haha.

Too bad I'm not sharing the pics. They're still on the camera and I don't feel like dumping them onto the computer today. :P

I have had mixed emotions all week. I really am fine still being pregnant. I LOVE being pregnant. I LOVE getting to feel this little baby in my womb, moving around, and kicking me, and getting hiccups. I know I will miss this so much when the baby is in my arms instead of in my belly. So I'm trying hard to enjoy every minute. It's also sooooo much easier to take care of a baby inside of me than outside of me. I'm trying to get sleep, but that's hard because my back aches so much at night. I know this is just preparation, though, for being up nursing all night long. So it's ok.

I'm trying so hard to not be disappointed that this baby isn't here already. I have complete faith in this baby, in my body, and in the two of us to coordinate this child's birthday. I am a firm believer in letting the baby choose their birthday unless there are extenuating circumstances. And this is the irony.....I'm NOT a believer in "due dates." In fact, I haven't even told anybody the actual "due date" until recently because it's just an arbitrary date. But it's what this society goes by and it's really hard to buck the system. Really, it's more like a "due month," which is what I've been telling people when they ask. I just say, "I'm due the end of September." Which is true. It's the end of September. And truly, I could go into October and still have it be within my "due month." But I don't like to think about that because October seems far away.

I told Brent that I feel like I'm 2 people at the moment. I'm dealing with 2 sets of emotions. 1 side of me is totally calm and confident, knowing the baby will come when it's the right time. I like living in those emotions. It's peaceful there. But then this other side of me likes to take over once in a while and put doubts in my head. Because my body worked differently 5 times before, maybe my body isn't working this time. Maybe I'll never go into labor. Maybe something's "wrong" with me now. See why I don't like living in those emotions? It's just Satan trying to get me to feel down about myself and my body. Every single time I pray (which has been quite often lately), I get a calm reassurance that everything is fine. God knows me so well!

I keep going back and forth between these 2 sets of emotions. I'm trying really hard to stay mostly on the positive side, but it's difficult. The one thing that remains the same on either side of the coin is the anticipation. This is worse than being 5 years old again, waiting for Christmas! I am SOOO excited to meet this baby! I feel such a connection to him/her already. I have such an overwhelming love for him/her already. It amazes me sometimes. I told Brent that I could easily go another 2 weeks (or more)....IF I knew that's what the plan was. But not knowing the plan is really hard. I am a planner.....I like to know what's going to happen next and when exactly it's going to happen.

You should have seen me these last 2 weeks. My house was immaculate. I had the energy of the Energizer Bunny. Everything was cleaned up and picked up ALL THE TIME. That is a really hard thing to do in a house that's full of 6 people (5 of them being small people) all day long. Chores and schoolwork were done early everyday. Brent even thought I was going insane for a while. I think I freaked him out a bit. But the closer it got to my "due date" (you know, that stupid, arbitrary day), the more I started to let things go again. My need for things to be in order 24/7 was actually creating chaos.....clean, organized chaos, but chaos, just the same.

Now my house is pretty much back to normal. I still have enough of my mom's genes in me that it's a clean house. The kids are still keeping up on their chores and schoolwork, but maybe just not finishing as early as before. The house is still mostly picked up and organized, but it looks lived-in now. Whereas before, I could've put it up on the market and hosted showings, it was so sparkly at all times. I'm hoping this means that my psyche is calming down somewhat. I keep trying to stay centered and calm. I feel like I'm doing alright most of the time. Brent might disagree, because he hears it every time I need to vent.

This whole thing has been a gift, though. I've talked a lot to Brent about expectations. And how it's because of my expectations that I've had these times of feeling miserable. I expected this time to be the same as all the others (which really shows a lack of foresight on my part, given that this whole pregnancy has been so different). I expected my body to respond the same way it always has. And instead, I was left feeling disappointed in myself and my body as a result.....which, if you think about it, is just ludicrous. I have no reason to be disappointed. My body and my baby are working together JUST FINE.

In fact, there have been some wonderful differences in this pregnancy. For instance, my ankles are normal-size. I haven't had any swelling/water retention at all. My rings still fit on my fingers just fine. Last Sunday, I wore a knee-length skirt to church. I would have never been able to do that in past pregnancies. I remember complaining to Brent about it, asking "Who in the world wears skirts that show their chubby ankles when they're pregnant?" Haha! I'm finally one of those women, and my ankles aren't chubby! I haven't gained much weight this last trimester. I think I've only gained 1 or 2 lbs. (To be fair, I've gained a fine amount overall (33 lbs), it's just that most of it was gained in the first 2 trimesters). I've only started waddling recently. My belly isn't huge this time around (at least in my opinion). And this baby seems to still have plenty of room to do dances in there. I'm thinking s/he is actually on the small side and maybe that's why s/he needs to cook a little longer.

Ok, back to the bit about this all being a gift. This child has forced me to let go of expectations throughout this whole pregnancy. And s/he continues to do so. I'm wondering if this might be a theme during this child's life. But honestly, it's been a great spiritual experience too.....being able to "let go" and turn things over to nature and to God. I've realized I need to do the same thing w/my expectations about the labor and delivery. I fully believe that positive affirmations and positive thinking lead to positive outcomes. But I need to change my mindset, somewhat, about my positive "expectations" during the labor and delivery process. I can't have a certain timeline in my head because I might just be setting myself up for disappointment again. And so I'm trying to let go of some of my expectations about the birth as well right now. Because I really do trust that everything will play out just as it should. And it will be beautiful. And it will be much more enjoyable if I can just let it happen.

Like I said in the beginning, this post is mostly for me.....because I like to see all my thoughts written out. It helps my mind be more clear. So thank you for allowing the brain-dump. And we'll let you all know when this baby decides to join us on this side of the amniotic sac!

Pregnancy

(This is me last week at 26 weeks.)

I thought I'd update a little about my pregnancy, even though there's not much to tell. My pregnancies tend to be fairly uneventful, thankfully. This is going to be somewhat of a ramble filled with all the thoughts I've had swirling around in my head recently.

I've been feeling very grateful lately. In Relief Society last Sunday, the lesson was on learning to love ourselves so that we could better love others. The teacher had us write down 15 things we liked about ourselves. 5 that were physical aspects, 5 that were personality characteristics, and 5 that were spiritual strong points. A lot of the women were having a hard time coming up with more than 2 or 3 physical traits because they were thinking about things like "pretty eyes" or "nice legs," etc. And so I decided to show them how I'd thought outside the box with this one because I also got stumped for a minute. I raised my hand and told that I'd written down that I was a really good pregnant lady. This drew laughs, but I explained that it was something I felt was a gift. Pregnancy isn't really hard for me. I've been pregnant a total of 10 times now with 5 babies and one on the way to show for it. I don't (usually) get super sick the first trimester like many women (although this pregnancy was an exception, but I got through it). I have a really easy time getting pregnant, which I consider a HUGE blessing given all of my friends that struggle in this area. My heart aches for them.

My body stays strong throughout the pregnancies. In fact, I got teased by neighbors when I was pregnant with June for being 9 months pregnant, with Lady strapped to my back, out weeding the yard. I've had a love-hate relationship with my body for years because I've struggled with loving my body in spite of the fact that it's not at all what the media and our culture tells me it should be. At one point, my dad told me I was "Pioneer Stock." At first that statement angered me. I felt it an insult even though I knew he meant it as a compliment. I'm not ultra-feminine or dainty. And with his statement he pointed out that I wasn't the only one aware of this. But that isn't at all how he meant it. I now take that statement as a HUGE compliment. As I've grown in the gospel and in my testimony of my purpose here on earth, I've realized what a blessing it is to be "Pioneer Stock." I've grown to love my body for all of the hard things that it can do. I may not be the most shapely, feminine, or beautiful woman on earth, but my body is strong and capable and REALLY GOOD at being pregnant and giving birth. With each pregnancy, my gratitude and amazement have grown and I stand in awe of what my body can do. And for that, my body is beautiful to me, and, I believe, to my Heavenly Father. I am doing with my body what He wants me to do. I am fulfilling (at least part of) my calling here on earth by bringing these souls to earth and I'm helping to make and grow their own strong, beautiful, capable bodies. I feel Heavenly Father's love for me very strongly when I am pregnant. And I never feel more "womanly" than when I am pregnant. Even though my belly gets big much more quickly than it did in past pregnancies, I love my temporary "culturally accepted" roundness. I enjoy my new curves. :)

As far as the physical aspects of the pregnancy go, this one is going along just great. I'm in the middle of the "fun" part of the pregnancy now -- the 2nd trimester. I'm past the constant nausea and I'm not quite to the sleepless, have-to-pee-every-5-minutes, no-comfortable-position-to-sleep-in nights. I'm feeling the baby kick and squirm all the time and that is probably my most favorite part of being pregnant. I love when the baby gets the hiccups and my belly bounces. I love letting the kids feel the baby kick or roll under their hands on my belly. The kids are getting SOOO excited! And lately I've been realizing I probably need to let them all watch some birth videos with me in preparation for the birth. Especially Lady, since she keeps asking me when the baby is going to "pop out." I only wish it were that easy. :)

Having older kids that understand what is going on has been one of the best parts of being pregnant again. It's so fun to watch it through their eyes. They love to come rub my belly everyday and tell me how it's getting bigger and so that means our baby is growing strong. They pray for the baby everyday. They talk about the baby all the time. And we've pretty much settled on a boy's and a girl's name, which is unusual for me and Brent. We usually just have a "top 5" list leading up to the birth. This time we definitely have front-runners for each gender, although we do have back-ups in case the baby looks nothing like what we've chosen.

I've been listening to my Hypnobabies scripts more diligently lately. Although I need to figure out how to use my ipod correctly, apparently, since I was rudely awoken by Michael Jackson singing to me in the middle of the night last night and my ipod got flung across the room. I love my Hypnobabies time. The meditation and calm it brings into my life are a definite blessing during my normally chaotic days. It's a chance for me to relax and focus solely on my body and my baby. It helps me connect with my baby like nothing else. And like this baby's older siblings, as soon as I allow my body to relax and unwind, s/he wakes up and is ready to party and greet me with a few hard kicks. It's awesome!

My midwife, Cathy, is coming for another regular check-up tomorrow. I can't wait! I love listening to the baby's heartbeat and talking with Cathy about my awesome kids and how I can't wait to meet this new little one!

Ahhhhh. I really do love being pregnant!!!

It's True

Yesterday my friend, Cheryl, nudged me into full disclosure by announcing my pregnancy for me on her blog. :)

At first I was frustrated, because up until now we'd pretty much only told family. So I started to question why I was frustrated. It seemed so silly. In past pregnancies, the whole world knew by the time I was this far along (I'm around 13 weeks). This time around, I've felt extra secretive about it and wanted to keep it private for a while. For the first few weeks, just me, Brent, and my sister knew about it. Then I told my parents, and then just a couple of weeks ago, we told Brent's parents and the rest of our families. So yesterday, I went inside my head to try to figure out why I was so hesitant for people to know. And I realized the answer. It started with my mother's reaction. She's a good mother. She worries and worries and worries about all of us, even when there's nothing to worry about. And that was her initial reaction to our news. It wasn't "Yay! I'm so excited! Congratulations!" It was, "How are you going to handle this? How are you going to keep up? Maybe you should send your kids to school!" (As if that would suddenly rid my life of stress.) And the thing is, it's not like I'm currently struggling with "keeping up." Life is busy and crazy, and I have good days and bad days, just like everybody else. But I'm handling my current situation pretty well, if I do say so myself. Then Brent told a couple of guys at work because I'd made him come home early a couple of times to take care of me when I was especially sick. One or two wanted to know if we were trying to compete with his brother (who works at the same place and has 8 kids) and another guy's reaction was, "You know, there are ways to prevent that." Hardy-har-har. Like that's the funniest thing we've ever heard. --insert eye rolling--

After adding all of this up in my head, I realized why I was being so protective of my exciting news. The thing is, I am excited about having another baby. Brent and the kids are excited about having another baby (The kids are over the moon!!! They have been so cute!) The problem is, besides family and close friends, we aren't probably going to get many "Congratulations!" this time around. Initial reactions will be one of three things:
1. the person will react with surprise and be incredulous as to why we would do this again.
2. the person will react with zero surprise or excitement because this is our 6th baby, so this is old hat, right?
3. the person will react similarly to that of Brent's co-worker and try to come up with something clever (but it'll really be stupid) to say and think they are hilarious and expect us to laugh at their wit.

How do I know this? The same thing happened with #5. It seems that going past the #4 these days (yes, even inside the Mormon bubble) is looked at with questioning and even sometimes scorn. When I announced my pregnancy with #s 1, 2, 3 and even 4, I got mostly "Congratulations!" and excitement from people. With #5, the scale started tipping in the other direction. I got more of the 3 reactions above than I did genuine happiness or excitement. And I think my subconscious has been trying to save me from that disappointment this time around.

I was discussing this with my sister last night, letting her in on my epiphany and she said, "Why do you care what "they" think?" And that struck me, because really, most of the time I really don't care what other people think. We're quite used to people having opposing views and questioning the way we do things. I should be able to handle this, right? And the thing is, if it were just about me, or Brent, or our lifestyle, I could handle it. I handle stuff like that all the time without it getting to me. BUT this is not just about me. There is another life involved here and it's this life that people are calling into question, and dismissing as "old hat," and making jokes about. And the MamaBear in me is insanely protective. I don't claim to know when the spirit enters a body. I actually think it's different for every new baby. But I believe that the spirit of this child is here with our family and with me a lot of the time. I believe this spirit is aware of the feelings surrounding this pregnancy. And it's my maternal instinct to protect this little spirit so that s/he only knows love and joy and happiness in regards to his/her entrance into this mortal world. So while my subconscious is protecting me, *I* am protecting my baby. But it makes me sad that I feel such a need already.

Shouldn't EVERY baby be celebrated? Isn't every new life worthy of happiness and joy?

It was great last night to have this introspection and to really delve into my feelings, but in the end, I realized I just need to get over it and not let others' reactions have an effect on me and that hopefully, by staying positive and excited myself, I can protect my baby from those who don't share in my joy.

So this is me getting over it!!! :) :) :)

Without further ado, I'd like to announce that Baby #6 will be joining our family sometime around the end of September!!! Brent and I are ecstatic and like I said before, the kids are going bonkers already, counting down the days!

Now to answer some common questions:

- Yes, this was on purpose. We have never had a "surprise."

- No, we don't care if it's a boy or a girl. In fact, we're not going to find out during our ultrasound at 20 weeks. This will be the first time for us not finding out. We're really excited to try it this way!

- No, the kids really don't care whether it's a boy or a girl (including Roo). They go back and forth on which gender they think they want.

- Yes, we will be having another home-waterbirth.

- Yes, with the same midwife. I love Cathy!!!

- This pregnancy has been entirely different from ALL the others so far. I got slightly sick with Roo-- I had "afternoon" sickness (nausea) with him for a few weeks. With this one, I've had weeks of nausea, followed by none at all, followed by more weeks of nausea. And it's been ALL DAY nausea. I've got an idea about why some women don't want to do this as often as I have. ;) I don't know that I'd have as many, as close together, if all my pregnancies had been like this. I have definitely been very blessed in the pregnancy department. Other than the nausea, I've felt great. The only complaint I have is that my belly is poking out already. I've NEVER started to show this early before. My sister thinks it's because I'm having twins, lol. I think it's just because this is my 6th baby and my body isn't even trying to keep up appearances anymore!

- Yes, I'm still nursing June. I nursed Lady through the first half of June's pregnancy. Lady gave it up when my milk dried up. My milk hasn't dried up completely yet this time, although I don't have nearly the same quantity I used to, but June is responding the opposite way Lady did. She's wanting to nurse MORE often. I'm starting to feel "done" with it all, but obviously June isn't, and I don't want to wean her if she's not ready. So I'll keep going until either she gives up or until I just can't handle it anymore. And who knows if either of those things with happen? Maybe I'll end up tandem nursing June and the noob. Guess we'll see.

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When I was on my computer last night, I stumbled across an online poll. It was asking what you wanted to be when you were little, whether or not you'd become that when you grew up, and if not, what you had become instead, and was it a good turnout or not?

As I reflected back on my childhood, I once again came to the realization (I've had this realization many times over the years) that I have become what I set out to become. My entire childhood, the FIRST thing I wanted to be was a mother. Then, of course, there were other things along the way that came in second place.....I wanted to be a veterinarian, a teacher, a pianist, a singer, etc. I haven't become any of those other things (well, except a teacher, but EVERY mother is a teacher), and it doesn't matter at all. My lifelong goal was to become a mother. It's the one goal that never changed over the years. (That, and to marry an awesome guy. And so far, he's exceeded any expectations I could've come up with.) And I realize I'm living my dream. This life is what I wanted when I was a little girl looking toward my future. I couldn't ask for anything more. Really. I love my life! I love being a mother and I'm so happy to be having another unique, wonderful, amazing spirit join our family! Won't you join in our happiness and celebration?!?!