WOW! It is hard to believe how much time has passed, but I am finally at the point where I am ready to pick up this blog thing again. I don't know how these other mama bloggers do it. They have cookbooks coming out, attend social engagements, network, blog and have a gaggle of kids and the fact that their hair is brushed and there are no clothes on the couch is mind boggling #hatsoftoyouall #notallsuperheroswearcapes.
A little bit after my 4oth birthday and my venture to find a new OB/GYN (I could not go through what I did before), the heavens opened up and I found the perfect one. After relaying to her the story of EV, she asked the question that Sean and I talked about even before EV was born, "do you want another?" It was a resounding yes! I have seen the amazing relationship that the Hubs had with his brother growing up and I knew I wanted that for EV. I saw the look on her face, the look I was prepared for, the look I get from a lot of people when they find out my age and that yes, I do want another. She gave me strict guidelines; "you have your 40th year, that's it and then I will strongly advise against it."
Well, we did it LOL. I don't know about you other mama's, but I almost knew immediately, I don't even have to take the test other than I like to see the word 'PREGNANT" on the screen. Our OB's exact words when we went in for the blood-test "how did you fall off the wagon" and then upon seeing my husband's expression "oh, this wasn't an accident?!"
While most people rejoice and begin the preparations of talking to their toddler about their future brother and/or sister and enjoy congratulatory meals with their families, I had a difficult time celebrating.
This is by no means a "poor me" post, I have many friends that have struggled with and continue to struggle with fertility issues, so I know full well how lucky we are, but with what we had faced prior, the fear settled in and easily took over my mind, filling it with dread. Prior to EV's conception, we had a miscarriage at 7 weeks, at 22 weeks with EV I had developed polyhydramnios and wouldn't end up leaving the hospital, at 30 weeks EV was born andwas told that I might not ever leave with her and 5 and a half months later we were discharged with a healthy babe in tow. You read that right, we were in the NICU for 5 months!!
From the sidelines, I am a little bit jealous. I am jealous that while other mom's celebrate their milestones with instagrammable pictures of their bellies and the fruit that their child is now the size of, and instead I am ticking off my own milestones. At 7 weeks we are told that our baby has a regular and sound heartbeat (check). At 18 weeks I am being told that my amniotic fluid is at the healthy rate of 15 (check) at 22 weeks, I am hoping I am told that I do not have to be admitted to the hospital and that I can enjoy a full-term 3-day stint in the hospital as other "normal" parents do. I am hoping that this too I can check off.
Bringing home a newborn instead of a five month old will be a brand new experience for me, I mean, what do I even do with one one of those....Bueller?!
Hubs and I have never been those gender reveal people, I love these people. I am all about a good party planning and I will Pinterest with the best of them, but somehow planning a balloon escape, pink or blue dust going into my face or cutting into a cake to see whether we are having a boy or girl seems like a lot of work and messy! We are more of those "do you want to know?!" "Yes, we do" people. If you had asked me with EV what I was having, I would have swore up and down I was having a boy, every nursery I pinned, every artwork I selected, even the neutral gray palette was all set up for a boy, so imagine my facial expression of finding out we were having a girl. Let's just say there was a lot of deleting that took place on my Pinterest board that day. Although if I am being honest, other than a few "feminine touches, not much changed in the nursery.
I meticulously put aside and saved every outft that EV had grown out of and had barely worn and kept it in the garage for this moment, the moment where we were asked if we wanted to know and the moment they told us that it was a....wait for it....BOY!
Don't call me Long Island Medium, I'll call you. Obviously clairvoyant I am not, but hoorah for having a transitional nursery....kind of. The only highlight is that even with having a boy, we are in need of absolutely nothing other than a double stroller (and not those side by side ones either, there is no way I am going to be able to navigate through the aisles of Target with one of those and if I can't do that then no ma'am not for me #allmamasneedtarget). I will be the first person to say that we overbought for Ellie (#teamnoselfcontrol). We literally have three (::cough:: maybe four) different strollers that fit any occassion and anywhere we are going, looking back on this now, I obviously know this was excessive. If you saw our storage container of bottles your mouth would drop, but NICU EV had a bottle preference and it only took about twenty different types with forty different nipples to figure out which one and which combination that was. So basically, whatever bottle suits Baby D's fancy, he will have it in spades. Every single blogger mama raved about THIS Fisher Price Rocker and how it was THE number one item that you needed for your newborn, well if your kid comes home sleeping on their belly, arms splayed out, and cannot be swaddled for the life of them, they will end up sleeping like this in the future and the rocker will be for not...
they will hate it and the rocker will end up in your garage in the hopes that your second one finds it the dream that all the other mama bloggers promised it would be. Here is my sage advice in my old age ;) ask for Amazon gift cards. You can get what you want, you will have an idea what your little will like and then you won't be stuck with a garage full of stuff that pulled you in when obsessively pouring over mama blogs as a first-time mom and buying all the "must-haves". My hope now relies on that what we do have in the garage is so gender neutral that they become a must-have for him and then I too can write about it and say what a must-have it is (#seewhataviciouscycleitis).
After all, this may be the year that we use that #musthave Baby Bullet to make our own baby food (this was supposed to be Hubs job until he saw the work he needed to put into it), but I wouldn't hold my breath.