Life is good....Week 27 by Liimu

Maybe I’ve been lulled into a false sense of security or something but right now, at this moment, all feels right with the world and with this pregnancy. I don’t remember ever feeling so … okay.

I think I want to take a moment to revel in the moment. Call it my gift to myself.

1. I’m ready for Christmas. Gifts are purchased and mostly wrapped, the tree is decorated and looks beautiful, cards are ready to send. I’m pretty amazed at this, considering everything else that’s been going on and how many hours I’ve been working since September. I'm slightly amused, also, as I had given myself permission to slack off and do none of it except presents, and here I am, having done more than even last year! Maybe that's the secret - low expectations?

2. Work is slowing down. I had a tough couple of conversations lately that have resulted in a more reasonable schedule – not the 70-hour weeks I’ve been working. Plus, I’m working from my home office exclusively, which makes a huge difference in my stress level. Again, this was one that has far exceeded my expectations. I had been telling everyone for months that things slow down in the New Year, I'll be lucky to be working even 20 hours a week, blah blah blah.... Well, I don't know if it's a sign of a rebounding economy, or if I'm just unbelievably blessed, but things are only slowing down slightly and only because I've pulled back on the reins in preparation for our son's arrival.

3. I feel pretty. I know I’ve mentioned before that I feel prettier with this pregnancy than I ever have before, and that hasn’t changed. In fact, it’s gotten better. My skin is clear and glowy, my hair is thick and shiny, and my weight gain has finally slowed down to the recommended average of a pound a week. FINALLY! I just feel in love with the world and in love with my family and in love with this baby that’s coming. I feel so happy and so hopeful and optimistic for the future. Life is good!!

I hope I can hold on to this feeling. I fully intend to. Again, I can chalk this up to low expectations yielding positive results. Tomorrow marks the official beginning of the third trimester and I had thought I would be positively miserable by the time this day arrived. Quite the contrary - even the things that should be causing me to moan and grumble (it's 3:45 AM as I type this) are things I take in stride and am managing to make the best of (what better time to have a nice, quiet cup of tea?).

People told me that once you get past two kids it really doesn't matter how many you have. Varying degrees of chaos, I say, with a wry smile. Secretly to myself, however, I feel like it's not even the number of kids that makes the difference, but moreso my ability to take things in stride. When my first child was born, I resisted every challenging experience with a "why me?" attitude. That made it hard for us both, believe me. When my 2nd daughter was born, I will never forget the turning point in my experience of motherhood. My sister had come to visit with her two toddlers and all the excitement had the baby riled up and crying. I immediately called for the nurse to take the baby to the nursery. Suddenly, I stopped. What was I doing? I could do this. I had done this before. I looked down at my new baby girl and said, "No, this is not how this is going to go. You and me, we can do this." When the nurse arrived, I told her I had changed my mind and was going to keep the baby with me, after all. I haven't second-guessed my ability since then, no matter how hard or challenging it's been.

I can do this. All of it. And if I can't, I know I can ask for help. Maybe that's why life feels so good right now. Because life feels like it is exactly the way it should be, all is right with the world, and I have the capacity to understand and appreciate that right now, in this moment, every single bit of it.

I wouldn't change a thing.

Week 16...Beauty and Brains - by Liimu

This week, I have a couple different topics forefront in my mind: Beauty and Brains. The first, beauty, is an interesting switch from last week’s discussion of pregnancy weight gain. Although I can’t deny that my weight gain is on the high end of the spectrum, I also can’t deny that this pregnancy is the first time I actually feel like I know what people are talking about when they talk about the pregnancy “glow.”

On Sunday, my sister in law was in town and she wanted to take photos of my children – she’s a photographer in NYC. She got me in a couple shots, make up free and all, and she just kept remarking on how beautiful I looked. I had to admit when I saw the pictures, they weren’t half bad. And often when I accidentally catch a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror as I pass by or as I’m washing my hands in the bathroom, I have to do a double take, because I really like what I see. Pregnancy agrees with me this time around. So, that’s an interesting shift in my perception – that regardless of the number on the scale, I can still look and feel beautiful during pregnancy and hopefully this is something I will carry on into my life well beyond my delivery date.

The second thing I have to talk about is Pregnancy Brain. I have had a lot of experience with the way in which pregnancy causes me to be completely scatter-brained. I can remember putting milk cartons into the kitchen cabinets instead of the refrigerator, and …. well, I’m sure there are other examples but I can’t think of them because I have Pregnancy Brain! Maybe it’s because I have three other children, maybe it’s because I’m working 70 hours a week, maybe it’s just because I’m getting old and there’s a little senility mixed in there with the rest of what’s going on, but this Pregnancy Brain is out of control. As an example, let’s talk about my 4-year old daughter’s birthday party. Granted, there are EIGHT birthdays in September in my family. No, I’m not exaggerating, there are eight: my sister, my two brothers-in-law, my sister-in-law, my two nephews and my two daughters. So, there are a lot of moving parts in September, but I’ve never really had a hard time managing it all before. Well, for my four-year old’s birthday, I decided to do a Little Gym party, which generally is pretty straightforward. You call them up, you make the reservation, they take the deposit, you send them the addresses, they mail the invitations, done.

Well, first of all, somehow they didn’t take the deposit, so I almost lost the reservation. Then, because most of the children I wanted to invite on my daughter’s behalf were in her class at day care, I decided I would take care of the invitations myself. So, I had a little help from my sitter – we put the invitations together, and then after forgetting day after day after day, I finally remembered to put the invitations into their little lockers at school. Then, I realized at 3 am one morning, that I had forgotten to include RSVP information on the invitations. So, I then very cleverly (I thought) made up notes with just the RSVP information. Of course, I didn’t have a guest list so I had to try to conjure up the names from memory. Then, I get a call from the Little Gym reminding me about my party, including the date and the TIME, which turned out to be an HOUR AND A HALF later than what I had included on the invitation. So, I created another “Oops” flier for all the locker (feeling not nearly as clever as I had before), and now could not even slightly pretend that I could remember who had been invited, and who had received the first Oops message. The best I could do was field the e-mails and phone calls that came in, including those from the Little Gym asking if I had my final guest count yet. It has been a mess. Fortunately, Sunday will come and the party will have gone off, one way or another. And people are very tolerant of the way in which the brain functions, or perhaps malfunctions, during pregnancy, due to all the extra attention it’s giving to the little project going on down below.

So, that’s what I have going on this week: Beauty and Brains. Maybe next week will be Brawn, if I can ever get my larger-but-cuter butt back to the gym. You’ll have to stay tuned to find out!