So now the house is quiet. DH and SG are asleep upstairs, and I should be there too cuddling with them. But I am trying to make time to get words out of my head and into the world, be it on paper or here.
I cannot believe tomorrow is Christmas. It feels like but doesn't. There wasn't a lot of rigamarole around it this year, it was very easy. I shopped early, had SG's presents done with around Thanksgiving, and just bought small for my parents etc. I can't believe this is her third christmas, will I think that every year this is her X number of times around?
I'm sitting in our living room looking at the tree and I've noticed all the ornaments have migrated north by mama's hand to keep them from grabby little fingers. It looks silly and makes me chuckle that really only the top half of our tree is decorated fully and the bottom half is pretty sparse and empty looking. By the time she stops taking ornaments off the tree and knows better, I'm sure there will another babe in the house that will be pulling them off just the same as she did.
I want another baby. I don't know if it's all the new babies I know of that will be joining our world soon or seeing newborn pictures or just plain biology but I feel achy for another baby. But it is a very scary thing to think of another. Being pregnant again, and if it's anything like it was with SG being sick sick sick will not be fun. There are days I think I'm going crazy just being home with her and I can't imagine why I'd ever want another, but that doesn't stop my heart and body from wanting a baby again. It's very strange to try and contend with your own biology, like now that the switch has been flipped it's an open gate and there will always be a mass pouring of desire for another child. I think because of how things went with SG I am anxious for my chance to do it the "right" way. I get disgusted when I see moms who choose to labor with drugs, not nurse, put their babies in cribs but maybe it's bc I've never been in that spot. I don't know what labor is bc I didn't go through it. I went through a hospital game that I pray to God I never have to deal with ever again. I want the chance to be powerful, to own my birth, to push my own baby out of my body like I'm supposed to; not have it taken from me, taken away from me, made me to feel foolish, angry, upset and deprived of the grace and beauty of birth.
I don't understand woman who want to schedule their births, or want to deliver early. I just don't. I cannot fathom not following your body, your design. Now. At this point. But I did doubt my design, I did doubt my purpose.
I guess it's more just feeling that when I think about another baby all the emotions that I haven't/didn't deal with with SG's birth come up and hit me in the face, making me terrified that I will have to go through it all over again. I want that baby to prove to myself I can do it, I will be able to nurse.
Maybe that is why I fight so hard to hold onto the attachment parenting that I am able to do. I wasn't allowed my happy birth, so now I feel like I fight back by APing. Because I couldn't breastfeed I cosleep, because I want my girl to feel that security, that safety, that closeness to me that we could have missed out on. That's why I still babywear, it's not a burden, it's not incredible. It's mothering. It's mothering based on what I know and feel is best. It's providing a safe, loving way for my girl to feel secure when she's reeling. When she's tantruming and wants just me and all my attention I wear her, to support her emotionally, to hold her. Because there will come a day when I can't just pick her up and hold her and cuddle all her problems away, but I am hoping that the groundwork I am laying now will help her to establish a relationship with me where I can carry her.