Jealous of what I already have?

More and more often these days, I find myself thinking about having another baby. Wouldn’t it be amazing?, I think. Then I remember how little our house is. And how often I’m alone with my kids while my husband works nights or weekends. And, the real kicker, how expensive childcare is.

I know you’re probably thinking, you’ve said this all before. What’s changed?

On the one hand, nothing has changed. If we could afford a bigger house in our neighbourhood and childcare expenses, then, yes, we may be more seriously considering a third child.

On the other hand, I’m so super lucky to have what I always wanted: two amazing kids.

I just found out that one my friends (who is also my next door neighbour) is pregnant with her second baby. Her first is just a few weeks older than Bo. When she first told me (last night, by text) I felt the familiar kick-in-the-gut stab of jealousy. What?  Why do I feel this way?  She’s getting exactly what I already have and, yet, I’m feeling jealous of her?

I saw a girl at work yesterday who is due to give birth to her first baby later this month. She is huge and feels uncomfortable. And I was jealous.

My husband showed me a picture of his buddy’s brand new daughter last night. She was still a little bloody, and naked, and perfect. And I was jealous.

After a semi-decent night’s sleep and a chance to reflect on all of yesterday’s baby-related revelations (we won’t even discuss Kim and Kanye), I’m starting to wonder if what I’m really jealous of is the fact that these people are just starting their family building journeys. They still have all the craziness and unknowns and excitement of pregnancy/childbirth/life with a newborn ahead of them.  Is that it?  Perhaps.

I have to remind myself that I hated trying to get pregnant and I didn’t really enjoy pregnancy. But seeing two pink lines on that test (ok, who am kidding, those 20 tests!) is so freaking amazing.

And actual labour and childbirth was not my favourite (nor was recovery) but those sweet new babies are the best.

Plus, there is that wonderful year of maternity leave.  There was nothing better than having a year at home to focus on my family and spending time with my sweet baby.  But that also means returning to work, which has been significantly harder the second time around and I imagine would bet even tougher if I had to do it again.

I know that it’s time for me to start focusing on the next stage of life – helping my babies grow into successful people.  It appears that it just may take me a while to come to terms with the fact that our family is complete.  In the meantime, I will do my best to smile and wish my friends well as they continue to grow their own families.

Sharing our news and meeting babies

We finally started telling some people about this pregnancy. On Friday, I shared the news with a few of my work colleagues (none of whom were surprised at all!) It is still hard to make the words come out of my mouth, but I knew I couldn’t keep coming work with my protruding belly and not saying anything.

On Saturday, we went to visit my father-in-law so we could tell him. Of course, he was thrilled for us.

After that, D seemed to get a bit “telling-happy” and started sharing the news with our neighbours as we’d see them on the street. I think my preference would have been to duck and avoid, but I’m trying to remind myself that D is starting to get excited and that the whole thing is becoming more real now.

One thing that I had been pretty nervous about was meeting some new babies that live on our street. My friend/neighbour gave birth to identical twin girls two weeks ago. In the early days of my last pregnancy, we were excited to find out that we were due within a couple of weeks of each other. Our boys are only a couple of months apart, so we were really looking forward to spending another maternity leave together. After the miscarriage, seeing her growing belly was a constant reminder of how far along I should have been. (Although, with two full-sized babies in there, her belly was pretty ginormous!!)

Meeting her baby girls was not as difficult as I thought it would be. Sure, I felt sad that I wouldn’t be welcoming my own little one any day now, but the twins were so sweet and perfect. It was hard to feel sad when looking at them.

With my original due date looming, I know that this next week or so will be a bit tough. My mind has been on it a lot and I’m still trying to sort through all my feelings. It doesn’t help that D left this morning for a hiking/camping trip on the west coast and will be out of touch for over a week. Being on my own with Littleman is sure to keep me busy and distracted a lot of the time, although I expect there will still be moments where I struggle to keep my composure.