A Little Hormonal Baby Rant in The REAL Baby Journey!

Can I just be real honest here for a second? With a Dec 20th due date I have all kinds of (likely selfish) concerns.

I worry my delivery and baby and all subsequent baby birthdays will get lost in the shuffle.

I worry that I'll have this kid and because everyone else is with their families and celebrating the holiday that I won't get any offers for help. Again, I know this likely comes off as selfish but I gotta get this off my chest because it's been bugging me for weeks. So many friends get food brought over and friends eager to snuggle the new baby and so many visits they get sick of 'em...but I'm pretty sure a 12/20 birth will get lost, go unnoticed, get skipped over entirely. Is that crazy?

While we're really being honest, I'm also wishing moms-to-be could be more honest about what they need. I need more god damn help around the house. My husband is a great guy but I swear clutter is invisible to him and dishes in the sink evaporate when he looks at them. I need a haircut and a manicure/pedicure and if such a thing existed, someone to shave my damn legs. They are so far away and I get short of breath before I'm to the knee!

I wish I could register for prenatal massages, gift cards to restaurants for pre-baby date nights and a little pampering for me. I have never felt less sexy than I do right now and while I am in love with the way my body is evolving and growing this little human, I feel equally like a whale waddling around the stores out of breath. I wouldn't change it for the world and I know it is absolutely without a doubt all worth it but damn could I use a little pampering.

I'm working hard to stay active, walking the dog for 30-45 mins every day I don't work and also running/lifting weights with my sister for 60 min every off day to try to stay in shape. Yet this weekend a coworker cluelessly told me 'I know you're going to have a boy from how huge you are already! You're carrying that baby everywhere!" What do you even say to that?!

I have all kinds of things I want to voice and vent about but the last thing I want to be is ungrateful. I am deeply thankful for this baby, for this opportunity to be pregnant, for the chance to grow a life in my body and share it with another little creature. But damn, you guys. Some days it is hard.

It's hard being out of breath walking into work. It's hard that any time I bend over it hurts. It's hard that I feel like I'm always wearing a kids full body snowsuit because I'm so hot or unable to reach my feet and I'm only 22 weeks along! It's hard that I pee four times a night and that I have insomnia like never before, even if I don't eat sugar and go to bed early and drink enough water. It's hard that getting out of bed requires me rocking back and forth a few times and using the edge of the mattress as a handle. It's hard that everyone has advice and while it is sweet and well intended, so much of it is thinly veiled "Just you wait. It is SO hard. Being a parent is SO HARD. Sleep now. Eat out now. Your life will end. OMG. Apocalypse. Red alert. Your life is over."

I'm excited for this baby but cautious, unsure of what it will all entail, how hard it will be, how much it will change me, my body, my marriage, my life. I know everything will be different but that is such a vague thing to be aware of. I know I'll get my body back, albeit a little differently shaped, and that it will be worth it, so worth it, but at the same time I feel like I'm standing on the edge of the biggest cliff I'll ever willingly leap off of. It's daunting and not all roses and sunshine and glitter and happiness.

I'm worried I'll register for the wrong things, that I'll miss things I should have thought of (like dye free, perfume free, sensitive skin laundry detergent - never thought of that! Or baby sized hangers for all the baby clothes I'm accumulating!) or that I'll end up with way too much of something that I'll never use. Registering has been fun and interesting but it's basically a crapshoot and I'm essentially just taking the advice of friends and family and winging it. If they loved it, I hope I do too. Then someone threw in "But the biggest rule of babies is if someone you know loved it, your baby will hate it. Guaranteed." and that threw me for a loop.

Overall I'm not this anxious and crazy every day but damn do I have my days. Overall we're making progress - working on finding a daycare provider, working on picking a pediatrician, working on cleaning out the 'junk room' that will be our nursery, working on picking out names, working on finding a crib & a stroller & a rocking chair & a changing table. We still have a ways to go, figuratively and literally, as at only 22 weeks along I have just under halfway to go and this bump of mine has a lot more growing to do. And don't even get me started on maternity clothes. It's a cruel joke in nature that we stay pregnant just long enough to go through three seasons and thus need all kinds of entirely new clothes that will fit a body that is constantly changing. Just when you think you have enough clothes to rotate through without breaking the bank, an entirely new season starts. The list of 'things I had never thought about' grows daily and every time I think I might be getting a hang of where we stand now, something else pops up. But it's worth it. It'll all be worth it. And maybe, just maybe, my baby will like at least one of the things my friends all raved about. I can hope anyway. ;)

Last updated August 18, 2014