Luck and symmetry

I'm in a rotten mood today, Internet. ROTTEN. Pretty much everyone within a fifty-foot radius of my person is receiving the trademarked stinkeye and the "begin a conversation with me at your own risk" vibes. Luckily for you it would be the height of dumbassery to vent my ire here. So. I have to think of something else to write about.

Yeah, this is not working.

You probably don't want to hear about how I washed every piece of adorable newborn clothing yesterday, carefully folded everything and agonized over how to organize the two empty dresser drawers. But everything size three to six months and up is still hanging off the side of the crib waiting for my nesting instinct to kick in.

Or about how much plain Hershey chocolate I have eaten since Easter, which begs the question: is it possible to poison oneself with excessive antioxidant consumption? (Because you know I am eating it for the antioxidants.)

How about: Our old lady stayed home from church yesterday so we took advantage of our lack of responsibility and hung out at coffee and doughnuts for a while. I met a woman who flat out asked if my baby needed a surrogate grandmother and, shoot, like I am going to turn down a potential highly qualified local babysitter. Then we were doing all the getting-to-know-you questions and when someone asked me what I do, I said, "Oh, I'm quitting and having a baby." And this woman clapped her hands and said, "I am so glad to hear that you're not putting your baby in daycare."

Which, fine. I am also glad I am not putting my baby in daycare, mostly because I think it would kill me. But I qualified this statement with, "Well, I'm quitting as much as I can, I'll still be doing some part time work." I don't know. I don't know why I cared what she thought, but I felt like I had to say something like, "I'm just lucky." And gosh, even saying that makes me a little uncomfortable, because I certainly don't think wanting to go back to work is the worst thing in the world. Some people LIKE going to work and I certainly can't begrudge them that! 

But I am lucky. It would be very difficult for us if I completely quit my job and I will have to go back to work at least part time. But I like what I do, I have an unbelievably flexible employer and my work is the kind you can do from home. If we need someone to watch the baby one or two days a week, it will probably be my inlaws or my mom or the surrograte grandmothers crawling out of the church woodwork. My little sister lives two blocks up the street. Phillip's boss started working one day a week from home after he had a baby and is willing to let Phillip try it out too. My friends with babies have flexible schedules and we've talked about sharing sitters and watching each others' kids if we need to. I haven't even thought about daycare.

Oh, and then I ran into this other woman I know from church. Actually, I met her during those stewardship visits a couple months ago. She'd just had a baby a while back and was sort of shell shocked about the whole thing- a lot how I imagine I might be. Sleep deprived, frustrated with nursing, annoyed with her husband, convinced she was a bad mother, etc. etc. etc. We spent nearly the whole stewardship visit talking about babies and their experience at the hospital and the first few weeks home. I don't think she'd been out of the house in months, let alone pulled her family together to get to church on time. But I've seen her almost every Sunday for the past couple of weeks and she always makes sure to say hello to me. This time she was lying in wait for me, totally excited to tell me about this new book she's reading and how she wishes she'd read it before her baby was born. I think I'm the girl she's going to save, the person she'll tell everything she wishes she'd known ahead of time. And I appreciate it! I'm assuming I'll have a howling hellion, not a perfect sleeping angel, and I'm a lot more interested in honesty than sugarcoating. But as I stood there listening to all of her hard-won tips, I couldn't help but think that this was one woman who could really use the internet. EVERYTHING she was trying to tell me was something I'd already read on the internet. So many people had her same story and I know Ask Moxie has whole categories devoted to her issues. I haven't done it and I don't know what it's like, but the internet has done its best to prepare me.

And to be honest, she made me feel pretty good about where I'm at. At the same time I'm thinking, "Gosh, I need to tell her about Ask Moxie" I'm also thinking, "I am WAY better off than she was." I had another shower on Saturday and people were asking me how I was doing with the Impending Birth of the SMALL BABY and all that, so I gave them the little two-minute "I was freaking out, but then I reached the end of the catastrophe spectrum and now I'm doing okay," spiel. A friend of mine said, "I think it's great that you got it all out of your system so early," and I thought, "Hey! That's EXACTLY what happened!" Not to say I'm not nervous or worried or terrified of mastitis, but I'm okay. I am not expecting everything to go well. I am not expecting to be supermom right off the bat. I know I will need help and I've already been asking for it. I am okay with saying, "I don't know what this will be like, but I'll figure it out when it happens."

I credit anxiety. Anxiety humbles the crap out of you. If I hadn't dealt with anxiety, there's no way I'd be asking my friends to check in on me after the baby is born, or acknowledging that things might not go exactly as I think they will. I am not too proud to grovel for more responses to my bleg!

And before I return to my previously scheduled Funk of Massive Annoyance With The Entire World, and because I know you're all dying to know, here is your SMALL BABY update:

MAGGIE'S DOCTOR: How's everything going?

MAGGIE: Oh fine. Except for the whole SMALL BABY part, of course.

MAGGIE'S DOCTOR: I want you to schedule another ultrasound because we want to keep tabs on his growth. But everything looks great and he's symmetrically small, which is good.

MAGGIE: Oh well then.

PHILLIP: That's a relief.

MAGGIE: At least he's proportionally small.

PHILLIP: I guess he's not going to have my giant head after all.

MAGGIE: Yes, we wouldn't want a tiny baby with a freakishly large head.

PHILLIP: Now when people ask we can just tell them he's symmetrical and leave it at that.

MAGGIE: Right, what more can they want?

PHILLIP: THANK GOD FOR MODERN SCIENCE.

Comments

[Jennifer]

Another point of "luckiness"---would you rather push out a large-ish baby or a small-ish baby?

I know what my preference would be---Oh Lordy, girl, the day approaches...

[Christina/Mrs Broccoli Guy]

My OB wrote on my chart that my baby was going to be "small for gestational age" ... and then my son was born at 7lb 11oz ... almost a full pound bigger than his older sister. So, be prepared, that little munchkin might be bigger than you think!

Hope you are feeling more chipper tomorrow!

[Arwen]

Your SMALL BABY thing is cracking me up. :)