My (no longer) Secret

In case it wasn't painfully obvious from all of the beating around the bush I've been doing when I haven't been maintaining an apathetic radio silence on The Interwebz lately, I've been growing myself a little secret. A baby, in fact, with tiny fingers and toes and a huge baby head, complete with all sorts of nausea, tiredness, and pelvic discomfort. You can see now why I haven't been running for the better part of three months.

here we are sucking our thumb and sleeping.

It's been hard to enjoy this baby so far. I'm sure it was the same last time with Ethan. The first months of pregnancy for me are always difficult. I get ill, I get headaches, I get insane cravings, I get weepy, I get exhausted and climb into my bed for as long as the world will let me. Today, though, we finally had our first ultrasound and got a chance to see the little monster up-close and personal. It's nice to be reminded that I'm only miserable like this because I'm growing a tiny person inside of my body. That there is a good cause lurking behind the ever-changing need for egg mayo sandwiches and prawn cocktail crisps, ooh, no! burgers...no wait, pepperoni pizza...or perhaps nothing but salty, greasy chips...or just some water and a fromage frais and the chance to lie down and cry until I sleep.

As anyone with more than one child can attest, weathering this maelstrom of hormones doesn't get any easier when you already have an outside child running around, colouring on your walls, begging for your attention. Ethan and I have seen through our mornings all too often lately with me napping while he watches cartoons on my laptop. Charlie and Lola on Netflix has saved my life more often than I care to admit.

The part of pregnancy, though, that is hardest for me is the fact that feeling tired and sick and sore makes me lethargic. Part of me wants to go outside and go on walks and go swimming and try to get in short runs with Ethan in the jogger again. But most of me just wants to want these things. Lovely as I know they are, these pursuits feel entirely unappealing when your hips and back ache, and your round ligaments protest every time you want to stand up, and you get to enjoy the sporadic pain of that just-kicked-in-the-crotch feeling that comes as one of pregnancy's many little gifts.

And yet, come the end of December, I'll have a tiny new person to bring home. Someone else with my nose and my eyes (in shape, if not in colour), and my lips, and my hands. (Seriously, I need to find pictures to prove just how much Ethan reminds me of myself at his age.) It's an exciting prospect. We've already been trying to get Ethan psyched about the idea of getting a new baby. The Husband and I between us have read him There's Going To Be A Baby more times than I can count, and I have Ethan trained to point at my stomach whenever I ask, 'where is Mummy's baby?' Every baby under 6 months that I see is an object lesson for my little boy: 'Look, Ethan! There's a tiny baby. You're going to get a tiny baby at the end of the year!' I don't think he really gets it yet, but he does enjoy seeing the babies. He gave the 5-day-old little brother of a friend at playgroup the most adorable kiss on the top of the head yesterday. I was impressed with how gentle he was.

So there it is: my newest beginning is as the mother of more than one child. If all else is an abject failure, at least I know I can competently carry a newborn in one arm whilst dragging an angry toddler along with the other. Some skills you just gotta learn.