While I may not have many friends in real life with babies, I have many online friends to whom I can turn for support, commiseration, and questions. Creature Gorgeous is just one of these friends, and we have developed quite a bond entering motherhood for the first time with our pregnancies just 8 weeks apart.
Not only is she drop-dead gorgeous (even at 8 months pregnant!) with one of those “basketball bump” bellies that all pregnant women long for, she is kind, oozes intelligence and charm, stylish, and a great blogger to boot. Here, she writes about her thoughts on her pregnancy and impending motherhood. Enjoy!
Note: This post was written three weeks ago so the dates are a bit off. Creature Gorgeous is now 33 weeks pregnant with her little one. Be sure to stop by her blog to congratulate her!
Hi there! You may know me as Miss Perfume on Weddingbee or the author of Creature Gorgeous blog! Here I am volunteering to guest blog for Jenny while she is away! We all cannot wait to meet her little one!
Speaking of which, I too am expecting in less than 10 weeks. Ten weeks! I can’t believe it. Literally. As a wise friend told me once, It takes all kinds. I decided to write this post after receiving a comment from a reader who suggested that the way I was writing about (and perhaps thinking about?) the baby made it seem like I was inconvenienced. I’m here to say, that, yes! baby will be burdensome…in a good way.
Our lives will change tremendously. Hopefully as things unfold, it will be more apparent that we’re just a couple trying to figure it all out as we go along, feeling at once happy, perplexed, and yes, at times, inconvenienced. It’s a reality that we won’t be able to do some of the things we used to do or at least they’ll be more difficult to accomplish. But it doesn’t make us love the baby any less. We’re reconciling our DINK lifestyle to which we’ve become accustomed while doing the best we can for our baby-to-be. That is the balance we seek and here is a small peek into our journey of figuring it out.
So as some of you may know, our baby was not at all planned. Having just married in May 2009, my husband and I were *just* settling into married life, enjoying getting to know each other as a married couple, wearing our new identities of Mr. and Mrs. very proudly. We were not even sure that children would be a part of our future. And then ten months into our newly-wedded bliss I found out that I was pregnant! What? How is it possible that two older people like us (I am almost 38 and my husband is 42) could have done this without intending to? For months, we were somewhere between denial—well, denial isn’t the right word; it’s more like disbelief—excitement, and ignorance. It had not really set in that we were going to be parents.
In fact, we had been quite lazy and slow about doing anything related to preparing, save for being really diligent about prenatal care. It’s been a somewhat passive experience for us, and the reality of the baby had not hit us…until now…nearly 8 MONTHS into the pregnancy. All this time, we’ve been determined not to accumulate unnecessary baby stuff and clutter our home with baby paraphernalia (we’ll see how that works out).
I have not purchased but a few pieces of maternity clothing—$66-worth to be exact (having been given or lent much of it). I’ve done some cursory reading and have apps and weekly email updates online and on my phone, though I have been given several books (which I haven’t really read until now). I have not really purchased anything for the baby (we have been given a lot of hand-me-downs). We won’t have a nursery (because we’re selling our home). We only visited a baby store once and just looked at strollers.
Perhaps this apprehension to *not* change our lives too much is a function of having been single and child-free for so long, because we’re old and stuck in our ways. Amanda at Doubly-Happy sent me this great article on older couples who try to maintain their lifestyle while introducing a child into it. It resonated with me big time.
But finally, last night as I was preparing for bed, in the quiet and still of the night I had a (to me) profound thought: I will have a new relationship in less than 10 weeks. A new person in our lives who will live in our house and with whom we’ll spend a lot of time. Nights will no longer be leisurely and unstructured. That PERSON will be my responsibility…all mine. I felt a twinge of excitement and incredulousness. A cold sweat came over me, the kind that comes when you realize some truth. Sure, I’ve been marveling at (and baffled by) obvious bodily changes, the large belly, the doctor’s visits. But those things are pregnancy-related.
Pregnancy, to me has been a medical condition, a thing that’s happening to my body, like a cold (but not in a negative way—my pregnancy has been so easy and wonderful). For me, it is separate from parenthood. Impending parenthood: I hadn’t thought about it. I have the charge of caring for a helpless human being, to ensure his/her proper development, well-being both emotional and physical, for making sure s/he is brought up to be a good person and citizen. I’m not sure I fully understand this or how to go about it. I’m neither nervous nor blasé, just waiting. Waiting for something to hit me (like the first sight of baby) to get me moving and motivated. I’ve only focused on taking care of my body and the making sure things are developing well for the baby. Oh yeah, The Baby. S/he is still very conceptual to me. But things are changing.
It takes all kinds, they say. But now, after some midnight epiphany, I feel like I’m actually going to be a mom. I have started reading the books, looking more longingly at baby outfits online, and am really getting into it. And with every day that I’m feeling more and more pregnant, with every inch that my belly grows, with every kick the baby makes, and with the ever-increasing discomfort, I start to become more attached to the vision and dream of baby. The only difference between me and the woman who has dreamt all her life of having children is that it just took me a little more time to process. And I now share in the same excitement and anticipation that other moms-to-be feel. Baby is more real now and I can’t wait to meet him (or her). Whether or not our home stays a museum still remains to be seen. 😉
To follow my on the last leg of my journey (or the new chapter in my life, whichever way you want to look at it), please stop by at Creature Gorgeous.
