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Broke Wife, Big City
Pregnancy the
second time around
By Aprill Brandon
Now that I’m the mother of an almost 2-year-old with another baby on
the way, I’m an expert at pretty much everything.
Ha! Kidding. That’s all those other blogs written by smug parents of
small children that I can’t stop hate-reading.
I, on the other hand, almost take a kind of perverted pride in just how
little I have figured out about life, let alone about parenthood. I
mean, I have no less than four light switches in my house that I have
no idea what they do and currently my toddler is begging me to throw
his giant Mr. Bouncety-Bounce ball directly at his face. Then he laughs
hysterically, chases the ball, hands it to me and asks me to throw it
directly at his face again.
We’ve been playing this for 45 minutes.
And it’s only going to get worse. Take this second pregnancy. You’d
think by now I’d know what to expect when I’m expecting since I
expected not even two years ago. But this pregnancy is different from
my first in a lot of ways. For instance, with my first one I was
convinced I was pregnant with a ninja-trained dragon. And this
pregnancy, I’m convinced I’m pregnant with Satan. (It would definitely
explain all the projectile vomiting and all the chasing my husband
around the house with a baseball bat because he forgot to get the big
wheel of cheese from the super fancy grocery store).
Even my food cravings are different this time. All I wanted with my
son, Riker, was cheeseburgers. All day, every day. And with this new
baby, all I want are bacon cheeseburgers.
But perhaps the most striking difference is what my biggest fears are
this time versus last time. Because now I no longer have the gift of
ignorance. I now know what I truly need to be afraid of.
For example, the first time around, I can’t tell you how much sleep I
lost over worrying what my son’s nose would look like, all because in
his ultrasound it looked like he had the exaggerated nose of a cartoon
witch. I had repeated nightmares the doctor would hand me a swaddled
bundle and when I moved the blanket off his face, there was Miracle
Max’s wife from “The Princess Bride” staring up at me, screaming
“Humperdinck!”.
But now I know that having an ugly witch baby is nothing compared to
dealing with the witching hour. And let’s be honest, it’s witching
HOURS. Hours and hours where nothing else exists except the sun sinking
into the horizon, burying your hope with it, and the banshee screaming
ceaselessly into your ear.
I also wasted a lot of time the first time worrying about how fragile
the baby would be and how likely it was that my giant troll hands would
hurt it. And now I know that not only are babies tougher than they
look, but they hold all the power. In fact, they’re tiny little
dictators and I just pray that this one will be a benevolent ruler,
unlike his/her brother who was a ruthless albeit charming despot.
And unlike last time, I’m not wasting any energy being afraid of labor
or delivery or even another C-section. Because now I know that no
matter how my body is violently ripped open to provide an exit for
little junior, the pain pales in comparison to the utter mind-blowing
torture that is the first six weeks of breastfeeding. Now, I know I’ve
complained about breastfeeding before. But this time around is so much
worse. Because now I know what’s coming. I survived the first time only
because I was naïve enough to think “it has to get better” every day.
But it doesn’t get better. It doesn’t get better until two weeks past
forever. And even then you’re too sleep deprived to notice.
To put it in Hollywood movie terms, it’s like escaping from an angry
psychopath’s dungeon and realizing with increasing horror that in less
than six months you have to go marching right back in there VOLUNTARILY
and undergo the torture all over again. Only this time you can’t scream
at the top of your lungs the whole time because your husband says it,
quote, “stresses him out.”
Luckily, however, I also know that it will all be worth it. Because no
matter how bad things get, no matter how much pain or crying or
forgotten wheels of cheese there are, one glance at your sleeping
baby’s face makes you forget everything else.
That is, until it’s time to breastfeed again.
Can’t get enough of Aprill? Can’t wait until next week?
Check out her website at http://aprillbrandon.com/
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