Regretting my regrets

Before Annika was born I had regrets. I regretted staying with my ex-husband as long as I did. Hell, I regretted ever marrying him. I regretted not finishing school sooner. I regretted financial decisions. I regretted not working out more. I regretted haircuts.

Then when I got pregnant I philosophized about how all those bad choices had led me to the place I was in the world and if I hadn’t done things just exactly the way I had, maybe, maybe just maybe, Annika would never have been.

Instead of regrets, those bad choices were now stepping stones that led me to give birth to this beautiful and perfect child of mine. She is something I will never regret, not even if she turns out to be a drug addict or a serial killer. She will always be my beautiful perfect child.

But now I have something new to regret. And I wonder if I even should. Ever since I started blogging regularly, I have wished many times that I had started sooner.

When Annika was growing inside my body I had such powerful emotions and as a writer, I wanted desperately to capture it all and share it with the world. I was feeling emotions that I didn’t even know existed.

Yeah, I’m one of those women. I loved loved loved being pregnant. Even with the weight gain, hemorrhoids (gross I know, I have the best solution, Venapro is a homeopathic treatment for hemorrhoids that works using all natural ingredients consisting of herbs and minerals, get the treatment on venapro.net), heartburn, achy legs, nausea, tiredness, brain fog, and swollen feet (my god they were like grapefruits), I loved it.

A powerful life force inside of me burned with a fury and I couldn’t get enough of the feeling. Carrying my child was spiritual and divine. I had found the meaning of life.

I would sit down and try to write but I could never really figure out how to express what I was feeling. It always sounded so cheesy. I would expound wildly about how my emotions were like the universe and the sun and moon and stars.

Then I would read it and go, “who is this person?”

Then I realized they were just hormones. Yeah, the same ones that give me bloating and crankiness once a month. Yep, those hormones. And no one tells you that they take a few months to dissipate after the baby is born.

I thought I would continue feeling that way forever. I thought that pregnancy had made me into a new woman.

And while that woman was a softer person who seemed to understand children better, was friendlier and happier, I had lost my edge. I worried that I would never be able to write the way I used to.

So the first few months after Annika was born I continued trying to write about those things that I wanted to share with the world, but they always ended up being too personal and really only things that I wanted to share with Annika.

Plus, I could never concentrate long enough to write coherently and do it consistently. I can barely manage it now.

As I analyze the past two and a half years I realize that what was most important was and is concentrating on Annika and just being a mom.

And maybe the reason I couldn’t form coherent thoughts often enough to write consistently is because my emotions being transformed onto paper were less momentous than Annika learning how to crawl or making baby noises like her first “words,” ‘Ab’ and ‘Way.”

Maybe the reason that we moms become less physically desirable and lose some of previous desires, and become foggy and tired is because the universe is telling us that concentrating on our little one is the only thing that should matter right now.

Hmmm, maybe it’s not just hormones after all.

Martha is a stay-at-home attached mama in Austin, Texas. She blogs at www.momsoap.blogspot.com

Following the Principles: Respond With Sensitivity

Part 3  of a series of 8. It seemed as if the universe was not willing to allow me to get this post completed on time. With strong opinions firmly in hand, I have sat down a dozen times to write this post…and nothing. Sure I have some drafts…some ramblings about babies, and how this pregnancy has confirmed and reinforced my feelings. But they all lacked a real story. But now, I see the reason behind these delays. It seems as if the universe wanted to show me a deeper and broader truth about treating the most vulnerable members of our society with dignity, respect and sensitivity.

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A memory we hope Grandpa gets to keep...
A memory we hope Grandpa gets to keep...

Very recently, on a beautiful sunny Wednesday afternoon, Sir Hubby receives a call from his brother. Their father has just been diagnosed with brain cancer. After an all night drive across the great state of Pennsylvania– Erie to Pittsburgh to Philadelphia — Sir Hubby and Sir Brother-In-Law arrive just in time to drive their father to his consult with the surgeons. Sir Hubby keeps me updated on his fathers rapidly deteriorating condition via text. “Dad can’t recall how to use his phone,” and, “Dad is calling his dog the wrong name,” and “Dad can’t remember why we are talking to the surgeon.” Continue reading “Following the Principles: Respond With Sensitivity”

To tandem or not to tandem (Part 2 of series on preparing for baby #2)

This is the second post in a series on preparing for a second baby. If you haven’t read it already, check out the first part What on Earth Were We Thinking?

In [my] attachment parenting circles nursing into toddlerhood is common. A lot of parents strive for child-led weaning or at the very least gradual and gentle weaning. What that means is that a lot of moms are still nursing their first child when they get pregnant with the second (especially if they believed the myth that you can’t get pregnant while nursing, which is only true under certain circumstances for a limited time period). Continue reading “To tandem or not to tandem (Part 2 of series on preparing for baby #2)”

What on earth were we thinking? (Part 1 of series on preparing for baby #2)

Panic.

Complete panic.

It’s 3:00am. I’m 30 weeks pregnant. My 2 year old son wakes up again and wants Mommy. I nurse him back to sleep, get up to pee again (pregnant bladder) and try to find a comfortable position to sleep where my huge belly is neither making me uncomfortable nor in danger of being kicked by a restless toddler.

What on earth were we thinking?

What the hell am I going to do when a newborn and a toddler both have nighttime needs?

Were we wrong to want another baby when our boy was still so much a baby himself? Should we have listened to “mainstream” parenting advice and pushed him away, made him independent, toughened him up? Continue reading “What on earth were we thinking? (Part 1 of series on preparing for baby #2)”