Sunday, May 10, 2009

Time Flies...

It has been many moons since I have updated my blog and so many changes to speak of.

The first and most important one is that I am pregnant with my first child, Madeline Lily. I am a little over halfway done with my pregnancy now (a little over 5 months along) and things seem to be proceeding nicely. We've gone through genetic testing due to my age and everything was A-OK with that. That's when we found out that we were expecting a girl, which, in our heart of hearts, we really wanted all along. I didn't have a ton of issues with morning sickness my first trimester and, besides no sleeping a full night in three months plus, have been pretty comfortable physically.

My issues are all mental. Everyone that I know that is or has been pregnant all seem to be deliriously happy, taking pictures of their cute belly bumps and oohing and aahing over all things baby. I feel like there is something wrong with me that these things don't occur to me. Don't get me wrong, Madeline has a ton of stuff I have gotten her already, with help from the grandparents, of course. I have been reading a ton to gear up for not only pregnancy but for being a parent. That is the part that scares me the most. Will I be a good mother? How will I balance work and seeing my daughter and being a part of her life? How will this affect my marriage? How will we cope with the store and trying to be good parents? Questions and more questions that go around and around in my mind on a never ending tape. Everyone says that you will just know what to do, instinct takes over. I guess as an older mom I question everything more. Will I resent her for changing my life that has gotten comfortable after so many years of answering to no one but myself? I am excited to be having a child, but I also feel very disconnected too, like it isn't real to me yet. I am sure it is a coping mechanism, to protect myself from being hurt if something is wrong with her or something happens with the pregnancy. I wish that I could be like every other mom out there. Or at least how they appear to be on the outside.

To add to my already overflowing stress level, we will be adding moving to it. We have been trying, in vain, to get a loan modification on our house. It has been a frustrating and stress inducing mess of a process and we have gotten nowhere for months. We desperately need to get our housing costs down, especially before Madeline is born. So, we met with a realtor this weekend and have listed our home. Open house this weekend - woo hoo! We eally don't want to leave and have tried every which way we can to stay here, but to no avail. Our hope is to sell quickly and get settled at a new place quickly. We have a lot of the stuff for the nursery and can't set it up due to not knowing where we will be living in the near future. So we have added selling our house and moving to the mix. Let's do it all at once! We may have a meltdown in the process. I know I will be the one to have the meltdown too.

If we could get through the whole house issue and feel a little bit settled, start decorating the nursery etc, I think that we both would feel better about everything. I want to take a babymoon to Vancouver B.C. and I am hopeful we can still do that. I think it would be really good for us to do before the baby is here. We plan to travel with the baby, but this would be a nice romantic trip just the two of us before our new family member arrives.

Brian is busy making blankets and a mobile for Madeline. He has all this talent to do this stuff that he just discovered fairly recently, since we started our store. It is amazing to me to see this whole other side to him that I never knew existed. Musically, he has always been creative, but the crocheting and everything else is all new. I love it.

He has been so supportive and excited during the pregnancy so far. He reads some of my books and tries to take care of me, even though I don't let him as much as I should. He's very excited to be a dad and I think he will be a great one. I do think he needs to get a bit more organized, especially when Madeline is here and time for him will be precious. He will be the primary caregiver to Madeline while I am at work so he will have his hands full.

So that's the big stuff going on here. I'll have to update more often. It helps getting my thoughts out...