Category Archives: Otter

Monkey, Motherhood/body image, Otter, pregnancy

Not really baby blues…..

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More like baby shock. As the day of Otter’s arrival approaches, I keep getting these flashes of reality… I am having a baby. Another person. Who will he be? What will he be like?

There is something disconcerting about growing someone inside your body for nine months and still knowing very little about him. It seems as though I should have a very in depth knowledge of this little guy, and while I know we are already bonded, and that this bond will continue to grow, it still feels strange to think I will be meeting him for the first time in about a month.

I remember when Monkey was born, I had a similar reaction. After months of singing to her, reading to her, playing music into my belly, my first reaction after her birth was surprise. “Oh that’s a baby…. Oh fuck that’s MY baby!!” I looked at her little face and held her warm little body and thought “How?”

Of course, then she was in my arms and snuggled up to my breast nursing and I felt that special bond. It is still here, stronger than ever, a connection she and I have that no one else shares. It is precious, and wonderful. I have often wondered how I can have another similar connection with another person when the one I have with her is so intense and deep.

I guess I am going to find out in about a month! I am sure it will be a similar experience with Otter, I will experience a moment of disconnect and then all the bonded mommy/baby feelings will come rushing in. I can’t wait to hold him, and hear him cry, and be able to wear pants with a zipper. I want to find out if he is funny, like his sister, or serious, or what he is going to like or dislike.

It is so strange, this creating life thing.

Here are some recent baby belly photos:

This one really shows how big I have gotten! And he still has to grow by several more pounds! Ack!

Love to all of you! Soon there will be pictures of him, without the belly!

baby updates, health, Monkey, New Jersey, Otter

100 and counting…

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100th post!!

Today is my 100th post on this blog! I wish I had something very interesting and important to say for this momentous occasion, but I don’t!! I do however have pictures of the frozen foliage in my front yard, news about the health of my little girl, and pregnancy jabber.

Monkey has recovered nicely from her role in “The Exorcist: Satan takes New Jersey!” and slept through the night, waking this morning with a voracious appetite and good spirits. My spirits have improved as well, since I was not up all night alternately holding her hair back and washing vomit covered bed-clothes. Yay!! No more vomit! (Thus far, Lee is not feeling very well, so we shall see if the saga continues.)

Today I am studying for the bar, Monkey is playing around the house, and we are enjoying the rising temperatures and melting ice. Things are beginning to move in the wind again, instead of just cracking in half and falling into the back yard.

Here are some pictures of the perfectly iced over tree and bush in the front of our house, these were taken this morning, so there has been some melting, but they still show how eerily the ice covered everything. It looked like a set for some mythical movie, every single thing had a fine coating of ice on it. All the fences, trees, bushes, flower stems, etc. Even the house has a shiny thin coating of ice on it. And the snow on the ground was so hard and frozen no footprints were left in it when you passed by.

The pictures don’t show the detail very well, as my camera is limited to the abilities of a point and shoot, but the tops and sides of each branch and leaf is coated in a thin sheen of ice. It still feels like a winter wonderland, as long as you don’t have to go anywhere.

However, the neighborhood and surrounding town is recovering, the downed power line outside our house was taken care of yesterday evening and the plows have been through so it is easier to get around the town. We may even venture out today! I think we are both a little stir crazy, having been stuck in the house for a few days in a row with no school or guests. Of course, nothing beat the day with no power for sheer stir craziness, but I have to say I am grateful that did not coincide with the 24 hours in which she forcefully expelled everything in her stomach. I am so glad that is over!

Otter has moved into position in this 33rd week of pregnancy and has begun to move around low in my womb. He moves around a lot still, and now has the size and strength to move my stomach with him. Last night he was rythmically kicking me while Lee and I were watching my tummy jump in time to the baby. His nickname is Leviathan Baby, as he rolls my stomach from side to side and causes parts of it to stick out oddly.

I suffer from this odd belief that I am going to give birth early, even though I logically know that chances of it are slim to none, and that he will likely be born closer to the 15th of April than his due date, the 1st. However, I am taking the bar exam at the end of this month, and am positive this is the cause of my concern. The thought of going into labor while taking the bar with complete strangers an hour’s drive from my husband and house is horrible. I remind myself that the worst case scenario has Lee and Ellen driving to a hospital in Somorset, but I still worry. It is par for the course for bar exam takers, we all become obsessive about one thing or another while we prepare for licensure. (Okay, more obsessive.)

I will post more updated baby belly photos sometime this week. I have gotten a lot bigger and now have an outie instead of an innie. (Or as Lee so poetically puts it “Look honey! You’ve popped!)

Well, it is back to studying for the bar exam for me. Thanks for spending your valuable time reading the various things I have said here, I appreciate the connection. It is hard not to feel homesick, but connecting with everyone from time to time in the comments section really helps. Blessed be to all of you!

P.S. This is an awesome shirt! I have to have it!

Motherhood/body image, Otter, pregnancy

He’s going to rock that belly!!

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It has begun. Otter is now big enough to rock that belly!! Yes indeed, last night Lee and I were talking when Lee stopped and stared hard at my tummy.

“That was wierd, your whole stomach moved.”

Yes it did! He is rolling and kicking and moving around so much that I look like the first stages of alien release!! We sat back and enjoyed the show together for a bit as Otter was quite willing to put in a major performance.

At Ellen’s suggestion yesterday I checked of Shape of a Mother and submitted some of my pictures. It is an amazing site to go to. I am so angry that our image of what women should look like is impossible to acheive.

I mean, I was a thin and muscular teenager, I had an excellent body, and I remember scouring my image in the mirror for fat and “consoling” myself with the knowledge that Cindy Crawford had the same measurements as I did, so I didn’t have to be heroine thin to be cute. Come on!! How sick is it that our healthiest fit women in our culture still have to convince themselves that they are okay looking because they are not anorexic? Ugh!

My mother helped me a lot when I was younger. She told me she had always been unhappy with her appearance and then was looking back on photographs of her younger self and really felt angry that she had never enjoyed her looks then. That really stuck with me and I was able to work at being really happy with the way I looked. But it took work. I was probably 20 before I really felt that I was hot stuff, and that only lasted until I was 25 and got pregnant with Marlena. I wasted years of concern worrying about imaginary fat or a few zits, or the fact that I couldn’t wear empire waist shirts without looking pregnant. It’s sickening.

So, here I am, 31, and heading towards a true jiggly belly as soon as this baby emerges. I had better get my crap together and start learning how to be okay with my body, actually no…. I want to learn to be proud of it! I am really strong! I don’t really want to look like a model! They have teeny arms and legs lacking in muscle. They can’t lift my 5 year old and tromp around the house blowing zurberts!!! They can’t swing her around “swing kids” style until she giggles breathlessly! They can’t hoist baby, diaper bag, briefcase, and groceries into the house all at once! Or move thier own living room furniture when they want to redecorate without the immediate opinion of their spouse! (Sorry honey, sometimes a woman’s gotta do it on her own. But I am always willing to put it back if you hate it.)

So, here is another foray into the land of artistic expression and unself-concious body acceptance.

Granted, the true irony about pregnancy is that once you accept your body as is, it changes again. And again. And again. However, it is an amazing thing, this ever changing body of mine. After all, it has grown two people. One of whom is running around in Kindergarten and the other who is still waiting to pop out and say hello. I don’t really know of any other thing as amazing. It is so unreal that what starts as a little nausea and tiredness becomes another person. A whole other human, who will eventually go to college and change the world… somehow.

Anyway, check out Shape of a Mother, if you haven’t already. Then take up the banner with me and agree to try to stop longing for a shapeless American Stick Insect body. Who wants to resemble a clothing hanger? It’s Mayan Fertility Goddess for me all the way!