Weepy

I'm feeling a bit weepy today. Truth be told, I've been feeling a bit weepy for the past few days. Lots of things make me want to cry, especially things connected to Wild Man. In the past month or so, it has really hit home how much he has grown up.

He is almost completely potty-trained. He always pees on the toilet, and he poops on it about 85% of the time. While a lot of this is due to mine and C's effort to make sure he goes, he is getting much better about telling us when he has to do. He can dress himself, aside from buttoning buttons and zipping zippers. He can even get his shoes on himself, although he still confuses which feet they go on regularly. And in the milestone we've been working toward for so long: he consistently sleeps through the night and puts himself to sleep. This is a big accomplishment in our household. All of these things are great, and I'm very proud of my little guy. But he is definitely not a baby anymore. He's lost most of his baby chub with his most recent growth spurt. He is about 35 inches tall and weighs about 33 pounds. He constantly tells me, "Mommy, I do it myself." He has never been much of a snuggler, and he is even less of one now. He is very free with hugs and kisses, but he won't sit on my lap (or what is left of it) for any length of time. As if all of that weren't enough, he is fascinated by C. Whereas he used to want to be with me all the time (and yes, I remember complaining about it), now he follows C around and does everything he sees his father doing. I'm quite happy that he is attaching himself to C, as it will definitely make the transition easier once Baby Z arrives, but it makes part of me a little sad.

On top of missing my baby boy, I'm also feeling some guilt about having a second child. On some level, I feel like we're doing Wild Man a huge disservice by having a second child, at least financially. If we were a family a three, we'd be able to give him a lot more--in terms of education, of travel, of life experience. Being a family of four, those things are necessarily going to be harder. C's reassures me that this won't necessarily be the case. After all, given our professions and his particular field of study, our kids will have a lot of life experiences we didn't have as children. But financially things will be harder, at least a bit. And then I feel guilty for thinking maybe we shouldn't have decided to have a second child. It's this horrible cycle, which I'm hoping will end once I meet Z and hold her for the first time. But I keep thinking, what if all I can think about when the midwife gives her to me for the first time is Wild Man? What if I don't have the immediate love for her that I had for him? What if I like him better? And I want to cry again.

I'm really hoping all of this is just pregnancy hormones and that all of these doubts and fears will go away once Z arrives.

Stupid, stupid name

I have a doctor's appointment today--my annual check-up. Thus, I've been researching various forms of birth control since I know my doctor is going to want to take me off of the mini-pill now that I'm not breastfeeding so much. In my research, I ran across this article on moms ingesting their placentas to stave off the "baby blues." I don't know what I think about the placenta ingesting, but I do know that I think of the term the "baby blues." I think it is a stupid, stupid name. It trivializes and dismisses what most women experience after giving birth. I do not think that all women experience post-partum depression, but I do think that all women suffer from the drastic changes that occur in their bodies as a result of giving birth. I recently read an article (I can't remember where) that more accurately explained what happens in a woman's body. We are not, in fact, hormonal after giving birth. We are the opposite of hormonal as our bodies literally suffer from a complete lack of hormones. All the hormones we've been accustomed for 9 months suddenly stop to be replaced by newer, but drastically fewer, hormones. This is exacerbated by the lack of sleep that we experience after child birth. I could go on and on about this, but I will only make myself angrier. Suffice to say, to call what a woman experiences after giving birth the "baby blues" is inaccurate, dismissive, and just plain stupid. I know the emotions that I experienced (both good and bad) could not be described by that term. I wish people, particularly doctors, would stop using that term because I believe the term only encourages women to deal with their emotions on their own rather than seeking help. We believe "Oh, I only have the baby blues; things will get better," when in fact many women could be suffering from something much more serious.