So I’m growing another human. It’s in my abdomen. I peed on that 50:50 stick on New Year’s Day (no reason really, just felt like a good way to kick start the new year) and it spit two lines back at me.

One. Two. Boom. Just like that. My immediate thought was “Shit, I shouldn’t have consumed that much wine yesterday”. Ironically, I’ve been longing (fiending) for that much wine ever since…

[Not really. Well yeah kinda. I love motherhood. And pinot noir. But moreso motherhood. Especially after a glass of wine…]

Anyhow, so yeah. Pregnancy. We meet again, you ol’ dog, you. We’ve been together, what is it, 38 weeks and four days now? Yet it somehow feels like 3.5 years, doesn’t it?

I remember the last time we parted ways…

I cut my hair like Bieber because I was “youthful” and “funky”. And hubby and I slept cozily on the living room floor of our one-bedroom Calgary condo for six months to create the illusion for the wee pudding boy that he had his own room.

Oh how times have changed…

I remember, at that time, being so exhausted trying to constantly stimulate the baby with expressive faces and animated talking and singing and tummy time and more faces and more talking and shapes and colors and classical music and…

By mid-morning I would be mentally tapped-out. Like, mouth-breathing while drooling. Tapped out. And so – shirt still unbuttoned, one or both bare, leaky tits apathetically flapping about – I would bundle the baby in the carrier or stroller and just go. Just walk aimlessly out of the condo and into the neighbourhood for sometimes hours. I was delusional with exhaustion.

I was also gym-selfie-worthy tanned due to all the time outside. And I unintentionally lost the baby weight (and then some) with such speed that the extended family had me convinced I had some undiagnosed wasting disease.

Once my family doctor confirmed an uncontrolled, flesh eating disease process was not, in fact, consuming me, I accepted my surprising, primiparous fate…

I’m a skinny chick now.

Pregnancy and delivery must have re-programmed something in me, perhaps at a chromosomal level. And now I could eat Zesty Doritos for breakfast and I’d probably lose weight for doing it.

“I don’t know”, I’d say, when asked about the sudden prominence of  bony parts previously burried, “I guess from breastfeeding?” Deep down, though, I’d be thinking “I’m just one of those people who can’t gain weight now. It’s not my fault.”.

And at the same time, my body hair almost stopped growing. I kid you not, I rarely had to shave my legs or armpits.

In short: my post-partum self had the body of a pre-pubescent boy.

Flash forward three and a half years: he done hit dat puberty.

Indeed, pregnancy #2 has inspired my body in a different direction. In the same work week, one colleague told me (“because I’d want you to tell me“, she said, bless her) to pluck my chin whiskers, and another told me that said whiskered face looked “really swollen”. I tried to argue with Friend Ship #2 that “it’s probably just from recent weeks of crying myself awake”. No, she confirmed, it was moon face. “Nothing temporary about it”, she assured me (I may be ad-libbing a little, but that was the gist).

Also, rest assured, I am no longer hairless. And I’m no longer “that skinny chick”. Also, there are skin tags now. There are sun spots; I call them freckles to sound “cute” (to myself). There is hair everywhere (can you hit puberty twice?). And (because I can’t commit to anything these days and started this blog many weeks ago) I am also no longer pregnant!

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Lil JD was born on August 28th. It happened much more quickly than my first labour and delivery. But that’s a story for next time. *annoying, exaggerated, open mouthed (probably with something in my teeth) wink*

So what can you expect, expectant ones? Expect to cry (a lot). Expect your body to not be your own, at least for a while (or forever). Expect to survive on no sleep starting around week 32 of pregnancy and ending around week 936 of your child’s life. When the first rays of sun peek through your mini-blinds – er, I mean, really fancy window coverings – at dawn, expect a joy similar to that felt by a lost soul in the desert stumbling upon an oasis…

Sweet adorable baby Jee, I made it! I fucking made it! I’m not the only one awake in the world anymore!!! *maniacal laugh*

Fuh realz (sorry). In the first few post-partum weeks, that joy of surviving another night is deep.

Expect to resent your partner and to appreciate him/her to the point of idolization.

Expect to be overwhelmed, almost constantly, with guilt. Every day. Morning until night. [I’m fucking it all up…]

Expect pride. And dread. And elation. And sheer terror.

It’s been a ride once again. Still to come in the next posts?

  1. Child birth #2. This one happened in a hospital. Heads up: I didn’t poop in a tub this time.
  2. Hand, foot and mouth disease – it’s something that happens when you have a three-year old plus a newborn and haven’t slept in four weeks. It round-house kicked my entire family in the collective face. It’s kicking my ass right now as I type this.

Until then,

Your estranged (and temporarily diseased) HOAR