Surreality

Having a baby is a nebulous thing ... It's so vague when you start thinking about it. Sure, a baby, that sounds good. It's not until they're here and start developing their own personalities that it becomes really ... real.

We started trying to get pregnant nearly 2 years ago. We had an early miscarriage in May 2007, and then kept trying. I got so absorbed with the "trying" part, charting temperatures, tracking ovulation, taking Clomid, all that stuff, that once I finally peed on a stick and got the "Pregnant" sign in the window, I started panicking. I'd been so focused on getting pregnant, I hadn't thought about the BABY. LOL.

The pregnancy, as many of you know, was not easy. But I felt a lot of reassurance from his little kicks and pokes and nudges at first, and then the feet slamming into my sides whenever I went to bed ... It was comforting, actually. He definitely had opinions on me working during the pregnancy, and those opinions have just gotten more tough. He is such a joy, until I sit down to type ... and then he yells. *sigh*

The last week has been very challenging for me working, but I realized that he is only going to be little and wanting me all the time for a very short time, and hubby deciding on his own to work more hours has eased my mind (and our budget) a lot. We've cut back on some things (if you have our home phone number in your cell phone, you may want to reprogram my cell phone as the main number since I disconnected the house phone this week ...), and are looking at others, and working on paying off our one credit card and all the medical bills, hopefully within the next 6 months. I'm still working, still have to, but I don't have to try and work a billion hours anymore while caring for this little person.

Tonight baby was laying on me, tummy to tummy, and he was just smiling and cooing (and drooling and spitting up onto the burp cloth I stuck between us). And it hit me how blessed we are to have him, and how he's developing his own personality. He's so cute and I'm just happy getting to know him. He has his own wants and needs and choices ... it may seem like babies are just there, but he definitely has opinions. He wants formula 3 or 4 times a day. I'll happily give it to him if he's going to not scream at me. And he's still nursing well the rest of the time, but he definitely knows when he wants the formula. His smiles light up our whole house -- hubby and kiddo came in the nursery and fawned all over him too. He's changed our lives in such positive ways (mostly), and he's still so little ... But he definitely has his own ideas about what we should be doing.

So I'm working from 3 a.m. to 8 a.m., whenever he's sleeping (I usually have to feed him in there), then I'm with him most of the day, working during a couple of naps as well, sleeping during one of them with him, and I usually go to bed when he and kiddo go down for the night. It's not easy, but boy it's worth it, being able to just snuggle with him and sing to him and rock him without stressing.

And then I remembered how awesome it was to be able to do the same thing with kiddo when she was tiny because my parents let us live with them for so long. It's been such a long time since I had a baby, I'd forgotten a LOT of stuff, pregnancy and new baby wise. It's wonderful to remember things she did when he does them. Kiddo is totally jealous of all the time baby gets, but I keep reminding her she had me all to herself for a very long time. lol. She's being such a big help lately, too ... I just feel very blessed these days. Even if life isn't perfect.