Sunday, December 23, 2012

Plans

And if I can be indulged, the tone of this blog for the foreseeable future will be that of thoughts I'd like to share with my daughter.  As such I'm throwing some blogging basics out the window.  For example, I will write long, sometimes windy posts that you may or may not read to the end and that's ok.  


First Thought:
A friend said something very profound to me a couple of weeks ago.
 
You can be happy about the new life that will join your family without being happy about being pregnant.  I think that's something important for women who have tough pregnancies to understand.

No biological male will ever know what its like to be pregnant, how a baby the size of an apple seed can drain all your energy, induce what seems like endless bouts of nausea and/or vommitting, and generally make it difficult for you to live your life as you had been before pregnancy.  I don't think it can be adequately explained, especially since working, and being busy, industrious, productive is what's valued above most other things in our current society.  Being pregnant and incapacitated by early pregnancy symptoms made me feel isolated and completely unproductive.  All of the things I should have been doing, had been doing, wished I could be doing clogged my mind, all while I was doing one of the most important tasks I'll ever do, adding to our family by donating my energy, my vitamins and nutrients, the very oxygen I breathe to our next child.  Sometimes I think, "my baby watched too much tv, our family hasn't eaten a home cooked meal in what feels like fifty years, I haven't volunteered enough, been to church enough, called my friends enough, been enough", but the truth is, right now I only have two central imperatives: first, keep the greatest person I know safe and looked after, second, gestate.  My current motto is I'm going to do what I can do and keep it moving.  Living right in the now.