Tuesday, June 29, 2010

No Reservations: Party of Five

Hello, my name is Morgen. I am pregnant, and I have been avoiding my blog.

At first, it was because I hadn't told anyone that I am spawning again, and didn't want to have the very important people in my life find out via blog-*ahem*-like last time. To be fair, the first time around, I had an excuse for informing my friends and family by way of an internet announcement: UTTER TERROR AND DENIAL.

I don't have that excuse now. About a month ago, I took two tests, and they both said the same thing. (Carl: why? did you cheat on the first one?) No denying it. Can't possibly. My tummy's already poking out and I can't get enough peanut butter down my throat to save my life. Also Wickles. But not at the same time. That's just sick.

Fear? I suppose. However, I have both been here and done this. Nothing to fear but deep vein thrombosis, baby names that suck, and fear itself.

And now, after my cousin's graduation party on Saturday, my family and friends are all officially informed. No reason not to blog away.

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It's a matter of an emotional freeze. For the past month, I've been waiting for the wave of emotion to break over me....whatever it was going to be. Utter despair? Career-related hand-wringing? Stupid mushy baby-centric giggling? I don't know what I've been expecting, but I've spent the past month holding my breath til it happened. I thought that when my sister got here for her summer visit, and I was able to tell her in person, it might hit me. Or that when I saw Wendy and my nephew Eddie playing together, I would see how it will be for me someday...with two.

Four years ago, when I finally stopped clinging to the flimsy scraps of denial, the wave that crashed over me was dread. Also, hysterical laughter at the preposterous image of me as a mother. I then spent months treading in that drowning pool of dread/crazy, until she arrived and proved that all of my angst had been entirely off-track and totally insufficient at the same time.

I've been waiting for something like that.

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Yesterday, I had lunch with Steph. Suddenly, a hundred people we know have just had babies or are about to. So naturally, we talked babies and looked at baby sewing patterns and clucked in disapproval over the ridiculous $300 yarn cost for a cashmere baby blanket in this knitting book...(I mean, really?? a $300 cashmere spit-up catcher??) Somewhere in that, the following came out of my mouth: "trying to figure out that this isn't my life getting sidetracked, but is my actual life." This bit of musing was had over a peanut butter sundae at Friendly's, and has echoed around in my brain for two days.

Logically, I should be terrified. We are in litigation over our house with no resolution in sight, no one will hire me, and we already have one teenager and one holy terror of a preschooler running around here leaving destruction and despair in their respective wakes. Adding a fifth person to our family will undeniably complicate everything.

I thought that right now, I'd be writing sardonically about having to put everything on hold again for the impending doom that is pregnancy and a new baby, but I'm not. I have been waiting for the wrong thing to hit me. The hurricane of dread? Not coming. The water is clear and calm. The sun is breaking through the fog, and I get it now.

I have finally unfrozen my will to write about this: my actual life.

In my actual life, I am having another baby, and I am happy.