Motherhood

I have not been posting lately. Sorry about that, or, you're welcome, depending on your perspective.
This past month has been a little crazy. Just when I thought I had the routine down pat, things go nuts. I remember a line from a song (I don't remember which song) that goes "If you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans." I think that applies to me. Like He is trying hard to to tell me that no matter how self-sufficient or independent I think I am, that I still can't do it all alone. So just when I think I have everything under control and start to get a little proud or rely on myself a little too much, He sends a reminder my way, that I am NOT self-sufficient or independent at all. That I need other people- I need my husband, my friends, my church family, my extended family, and especially the Lord, to really get through anything.
For example, just after writing that I think I have everything under control, that I have a good routine and a normal week, etc, we have an adventure. The car breaks down and I need to call someone for help, it screws up my grand financial plan for the months when I am not working the rest of this year, and leaves me stranded and relying on other people for help. My husband is gone, so I have to actually use my own brain to solve the problem.
Then Lenna has major dental work, reminding me about all the challenges I face as a mother, trying so hard to do the best for my children and really not having a clue what that is.
I think I finally come to terms with my husbands struggles with his chronic health issues and the strain it puts on our family, then he has a major health scare. One that forces me to again rely on other people, but most importantly reminds me how much I love and need my husband, in any capacity I can have him. How scared I was of losing him, and again how how loved I was by all the people in our ward family who reached out to help or offer help when we needed it.
Throw in some struggles at work, and the normal ups and downs of pregnancy, and well, I was really messed up, but also learning some hard lessons that I think I could not have learned any other way. And I will never be so confident as to say "I have everything under control and figured out" any time soon!
So now that I have tried to excuse myself from my long absence, I will get down to business! I have a lot of catching up to do in the way of journaling, but that can come later. I wanted to share a bit about my internal workings the last few days.
First, my mom sent me a great book for my birthday. It is called "the mother in me" by Kathryn Soper. It is really a collection of shorts about motherhood. Anyway, I am about halfway through and love it! It is not your typical Deseret motherhood book, with a great cover and well-known author but not much in the way of content. It is actually full of really good, intelligent, truthful writing by women in different stages of life. I have been brought to tears several times (disclaimer: could be the pregnancy hormones) either by the emotions expressed in the writing or by being reminded of something personal that brought some emotions out. The book is based on the essays published in a LDS women's magazine called "Segullah" and they also have a website and blog that you can read. It is one of my new favorites.
Anyway, after all that introduction, my nightly reading has gotten me thinking about motherhood. Specifically, my roll as a mother and the huge responsibility it is. Of course it also sends me off on a journey of self-doubt and the infamous mother-guilt rears its ugly head.
I have just spent an hour folding tiny little onsies and sleepers and with nothing good on TV to keep me entertained, I was left to ponder my own thoughts (scary!).
I realized that the posts I place here are often venting, expressing my discomfort or frustration with this pregnancy. Let me clear things up by saying that I am thrilled to be having a baby. We waited a long time for this baby to come along, knowing over a year before we conceived that our little girl, even down to her name, was waiting for us to get things together and make a place for her here. That waiting felt like an eternity! I am so very grateful that we can have children without medical help, even if it takes a while, that my body has somehow figured things out enough to be capable of being the location of something so miraculous. I took it for granted the first time, but with so many people we love on both sides of our family even, who struggle to have children, I have been reminded how lucky we are. And I am grateful to be "medically boring" as my doctor once said, and that the worst things I have to complain about are feet in my ribs and swollen ankles. I wasn't sure I even wanted to have children when we were first married, or that I would have more than one. But as time goes by and we get older and perhaps wiser we are a little more open letting someone even wiser tell us what His plans are for us, which seem to include more children. So there. I love my husband and kids, and my unborn baby, even tho she already has her days and nights mixed up, gave me a third layer of stretch marks by hanging out sideways for a week, and is turning me into an emotional wreck.
So what have I been thinking about the last few nights over loads of laundry composed of miniature pink nightgowns and tiny white socks? Myself, of course.
In that, how will I ever do it all? (see above, I still need reminders) How can I possibly give this baby all she needs without short-changing my husband and my other two kids? How can I support my husband in his career and education and health struggles while being consumed with the demands of caring for a newborn and recovering from childbirth myself? (read, who is going to carry the kids to bed in the middle of the night when neither of us can lift anything that heavy? Or how many days can I ask him to miss from work and school to help me at home without making him get behind)
And what about the older ones? Is it fair to postpone Lenna's extra-curricular stuff just because I know I will be too tired/busy/overwhelmed to try and fit in one more activity before dinner? And how many times will she have to hear that I can't make/buy/attend/etc another school thing because of a newborn before she starts getting resentful? And how often will she be stuck being the helper when my hands are full? I don't ever want her to feel like the over-burdened oldest child stuck pulling more than her far share of the weight because mom got busy having babies and forgot about her or forced her to be the mom instead of the big sister. This week alone I have sent her off in tears because I wouldn't' pay $20 a kid for the school carnival, can't chaperon her pumpkin patch trip because it is on the 30th and 1 1/2 hrs away and didn't want to go into labor in a cornfield with a bunch of first graders as birth attendants, and told her she couldn't take her sister for show and tell the week after she was born.
And then of course there is Andrew, the middle child, only boy, my baby who isn't a baby any more, and the one who had to experience the joys of day care while mom went back to work for a year and a half. I always worry he was irreparably harmed in some way. That I missed those golden preschool years that should have been filled with walks at park and library story time and play dates and "mom time" and instead he was in someone else's care 20 hrs a week. Yes, I know that millions of children do full time day care for their entire lives and seem to come out alright, but that doesn't mesh with my whole mom guilt trip thing so I am ignoring that fact. And I will always wonder what it was I missed that could have been important. And now that I can finally be at home with him, will he be so accustomed to daily school and friends and excitement that he won't want to be home with me? That I missed my window somehow. I worry that he will get lost in the middle, never having those years like Lenna did with me all to himself, not getting to be the youngest, and not having that little brother to share outdoor adventures with. The very least, if we have another one in two years and it is a boy, he will be 6 or 7 years older, not exactly best playmate ages. So he will be the boy in the middle, always different and on his own with no one to sword fight with except a distracted and exhausted set of parents. Seriously, as I type it out now I can't seem to express the real worry and regret I felt that drove me to sob into my poor husband's pajamas last night when he really just wanted to go to sleep after a long day and I am sure he thought I was completely nuts but he let me cry anyway.
So.. that is what I have been thinking about. How I am going to do it!
To all you veterans out there, moms of many who have made it through mostly unharmed, how do you do it?