29 Weeks

Minus the martinis

I feel a lot like Miss Hannigan

My two children

Can feel like a hundred

When I’m pregnant

Tired

Physically spent

Emotionally sliding downhill

I wish there was a better way to put it

I wish I could write something wonderful

The truth is

Up until about a month ago

This pregnancy felt more like a terminal diagnosis

Than something to celebrate

I had barely begun piecing together

My grief

When I found I was pregnant again

Hyper Emesis

Hospital stays

Transfusions

Physical therapy for crippling hip pain

All jumped into the pregnancy pool

And like belligerent toddlers

Refused to get out

The physical and emotional strain

Have worked like Novocain

Suppressing

Along with the sting of loss

The happiness of having

One evening

Leroy sat me down

As all good partners do

And said

“You have put walls up with this baby. You have tried to self protect. You have to stop that now.”

One of his many gifts

Is telling me about myself

When I don’t want to hear it

I cried while he stroked my face

“It’s time to just connect with her.

No matter what.”

He was right of course

Taking down those walls has been no matter of emotion

A matter of the will only

Now that I have chosen it

The emotion is there

Waiting to be swallowed down

Her bone shaking kicks

And side splitting flip flops

Make me sigh and grin

At her “I will not be ignored”

Personality

She responds to her sisters

With what feels like excited flutters

The sound of her Daddy’s voice

With calm cozy taps

Against his giant palms

But most of all Mommy

When I’m lying in bed

Which is more often than not

She bumps and thumps about

Until I lay my hands on her and start to say her name

Ask her questions and sing her favorite songs

She will not be gainsaid

One more goddess for the temple

I read a quote the other day

Goethe

“Cease endlessly striving to do what you want to do and learn to love what must be done.”

So simple

So profound

So elusive

We strive and kill ourselves to “become”

When the becoming often rests in the doing

Of something else entirely

The everyday

Mundane daily grind

That unexpectedly brings about our joy

While we are heating up tater tots

I have none of the things that make a good writer

Less of the things

That make a good modern type parent

I’m a sprinter

Not a marathon runner

I treat my children like people

I get angry with them

Glad with them

I talk to them

Fail them

Get up again

Lots of hugs and kisses and hair sweeps

No theory or method or “hacks”

I don’t really try

In that sense

I find it impossible

To write

Or to parent

Beyond my own feelings or truths

I can’t be bothered to

Write about something on purpose

It has to come from some Alice type

Magical reservoir of tears

I can’t

For the time being

Put any talent or goal first

Over the past couple weeks

I have heard from more than one person

With strange consistency

That what I’m best at

Or rather

My defining quality

Is being maternal

Nothing has shocked me more in my life

That’s the last thing

I would ever say about myself

The last thing

I ever aspired to

Funny

How what we want to be

What we perceive when we look inward

What we feel like we project

And the reality of who we are

Can be at such odds

Two sides alone

In opposite corners

While writing this

I have stopped no less than 15 times

To put tiny clothes back onto tiny bunnies

To refuse to put on Pete the Cat

To marvel at Leggo castles

Wipe noses and pull myself back together

To lean back and close my eyes every few minutes

As I can no longer sit forward for very long

I am fortunate to be loved by so many

My children

My Love

My friends

My life is a blessing in the extreme

But really

Most days

I’m scrambling up the side of a mountain

Just like you

I’m no glowing specimen of humanity

I have learned to smile about it

Learned to celebrate when I gain ground

Not to despair when I lose it

Because it always

Always changes

Never mistake a moment in your life

For it’s entirety

While baby girl makes a mush of my insides

While I struggle not to yell at my kids

When I’m tired and overwrought

I have also learned

To pace myself

Just to live

To learn to love those everyday things

The making of beds

The strapping on of fairy wings and cat ears

Flash cards of shapes and numbers and Peppa Pig

When my children sparkle at me with their face and say

“Thank you Mommy”

I am learning

To let go of who I thought I was

Who I thought I should be

And sink ever further

Into the deep delicious

Undeniable

Part of me

That chose this life

With all my heart

The part of me that secretly pined for it

Everyday

When I had another

More Instragram worthy existence

I can tell it to you

Without wine

Or pretext

Or false pride

Living drenched in your real life

Is the road to peace

It’s not the forsaking of dreams or ambition

It’s placing them in the proper place

Cease striving

Let the river of your life flow unhindered

By the damning “shoulds”

The confines of your own expectations

Or the way you have always wanted

To see yourself

Instead

Let the water

Do it’s work

Go ahead and sink

Into Joy

Into release

Into the simple serenity

Of being someone

You maybe

Never expected